Tuesday, November 30, 2010
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide by the judgments of others.
What’s That Pain in Your Gut?
Could the same processed food additive that’s harming your brain be wreaking havoc in your stomach? Scientists say this is a growing concern.
Excitotoxicity is a destructive process in which a buildup of the neurotransmitters glutamate, aspartate, or other related transmitter substance over-stimulates special glutamate receptors that leads to damage and even destruction of nerve cells.
This process is thought to be central mechanism in neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Huntington’s disease, strokes, seizures, and addiction.
However, glutamate receptors are not limited to the nervous system, but are, in fact, found in virtually every organ, tissue, and cell in the body.
Massive amounts of glutamate additives are mixed with processed foods to enhance their taste. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the best known. But more common glutamate additives include such things as hydrolyzed proteins, soy protein isolates, protein concentrates, whey protein isolates, carrageenan, caseinates, autolyzed yeast, natural flavoring, broth, and stock.
Scientists are concerned about the large number of glutamate receptors found in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, from the esophagus to the lower colon. Frequent symptoms of MSG exposure include cramping, diarrhea, and nausea — quite severe, in some cases. To learn more about the nutritional benefits of the foods you’re eating, read my report Protect Yourself From Disease and Cancer Through Better Digestion.
When exposed to high levels of glutamate, nerve cells that contain glutamate receptors can trigger spasms of the intestinal and colon musculature, thus leading to intense pain and diarrhea.
One recent study found that exposure to glutamate in higher concentrations could actually kill these cells. Meanwhile, young people are consuming enormous amounts of glutamate food additives, especially in the form of chips, diet sodas, and other junk foods.
The concern is that this might destroy enough of these cells so as to lead to intestinal disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome and even a complete loss of intestinal motility (chronic constipation). It would certainly worsen the symptoms and damage caused by such disorders as IBS, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis. Stimulation of these receptors also triggers gut inflammation.
These glutamate receptors play a major role in colon cancer growth and invasion — that is, the likelihood that the cancer will kill you. To learn more about GI tract illness, read my report Hidden Dangers of a Sick GI Tract.
Flavonoids, antioxidants, and certain special nutraceuticals have been shown to powerfully protect nerve cells and prevent GI tract cancers. A diet high in fruits and vegetables, especially if blenderized, plays a major role in protecting your GI tract.
These are the most important vegetables to include in your blender (vegetables marked with an asterisk need to be steamed before blenderizing):
• Parsley
• Celery
• Collard greens
• Cauliflower
• Red cabbage
• Savoy cabbage
• Spinach
• Broccoli*
• Brussels sprouts*
• Kale*
These vegetables have been shown to be the most powerful in preventing a number of cancers, including cancers of the breast, lung, prostate, brain, and colon. To learn more about eliminating toxins from your diet, see my report Dare to Detoxify.
Excitotoxicity is a destructive process in which a buildup of the neurotransmitters glutamate, aspartate, or other related transmitter substance over-stimulates special glutamate receptors that leads to damage and even destruction of nerve cells.
This process is thought to be central mechanism in neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Huntington’s disease, strokes, seizures, and addiction.
However, glutamate receptors are not limited to the nervous system, but are, in fact, found in virtually every organ, tissue, and cell in the body.
Massive amounts of glutamate additives are mixed with processed foods to enhance their taste. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the best known. But more common glutamate additives include such things as hydrolyzed proteins, soy protein isolates, protein concentrates, whey protein isolates, carrageenan, caseinates, autolyzed yeast, natural flavoring, broth, and stock.
Scientists are concerned about the large number of glutamate receptors found in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, from the esophagus to the lower colon. Frequent symptoms of MSG exposure include cramping, diarrhea, and nausea — quite severe, in some cases. To learn more about the nutritional benefits of the foods you’re eating, read my report Protect Yourself From Disease and Cancer Through Better Digestion.
When exposed to high levels of glutamate, nerve cells that contain glutamate receptors can trigger spasms of the intestinal and colon musculature, thus leading to intense pain and diarrhea.
One recent study found that exposure to glutamate in higher concentrations could actually kill these cells. Meanwhile, young people are consuming enormous amounts of glutamate food additives, especially in the form of chips, diet sodas, and other junk foods.
The concern is that this might destroy enough of these cells so as to lead to intestinal disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome and even a complete loss of intestinal motility (chronic constipation). It would certainly worsen the symptoms and damage caused by such disorders as IBS, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis. Stimulation of these receptors also triggers gut inflammation.
These glutamate receptors play a major role in colon cancer growth and invasion — that is, the likelihood that the cancer will kill you. To learn more about GI tract illness, read my report Hidden Dangers of a Sick GI Tract.
Flavonoids, antioxidants, and certain special nutraceuticals have been shown to powerfully protect nerve cells and prevent GI tract cancers. A diet high in fruits and vegetables, especially if blenderized, plays a major role in protecting your GI tract.
These are the most important vegetables to include in your blender (vegetables marked with an asterisk need to be steamed before blenderizing):
• Parsley
• Celery
• Collard greens
• Cauliflower
• Red cabbage
• Savoy cabbage
• Spinach
• Broccoli*
• Brussels sprouts*
• Kale*
These vegetables have been shown to be the most powerful in preventing a number of cancers, including cancers of the breast, lung, prostate, brain, and colon. To learn more about eliminating toxins from your diet, see my report Dare to Detoxify.
Breaking the Cycle of Horse Roundups | Wayne Pacelle: A Humane Nation
There is a raft of major horse welfare issues in America, and one of the most important is the treatment of wild horses and burros on our federal lands. These horses are living symbols of the American West, yet too many horses are rounded up and removed from our public lands, causing unnecessary stress for horses at an enormous and unsustainable long-term expense to taxpayers.
We need new approaches to break the gridlock on this issue. Fertility control provides a new pathway. We want to replace gather-and-removal practices with the humane capture of mares in order to treat them with the immunocontraception vaccine PZP and release them back to the range (also known as capture/treat/release). We want to replace gathers using helicopters with passive gather techniques, such as water and nutrient-bait trapping (placing water or nutrients in an area where they are scarce to gradually lure and then build a temporary corral around the horses). And we want to develop and use efficient techniques for remotely delivering PZP to mares on the range so gathers are no longer needed.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is starting to embrace this way of thinking. In the coming weeks, the BLM plans to conduct capture/treat/release programs at 11 wild horse herd management areas in the near future. This is a tremendous step forward in creating a more humane and sustainable wild horse management program and we applaud the BLM for its efforts. Once the BLM fully embraces this approach, it will save millions of tax dollars and get the agency off the treadmill of rounding up horses and keeping them in long-term holding pens on the government dole.
Field researchers for The HSUS are currently studying the use of passive gather techniques to gently lure wild horses to areas where they can be treated with the PZP immunocontraception vaccine and released without ever being captured. In the Sand Wash Basin management area, our researchers recently reported that they were able to successfully treat 82 percent of previously treated mares via remote delivery, without the need for any type of gather.
For more than 20 years, The HSUS has been conducting wildlife contraception research and we’re confident that PZP is a valuable tool for the humane and efficient management of wild horses. We also understand that, as with any new technology, there may be skepticism or concern that the vaccine may have unintended consequences. We encourage anyone looking for more information to browse this webpage, which more broadly describes our vision for wild horse management and answers some frequently asked questions about PZP.
We need new approaches to break the gridlock on this issue. Fertility control provides a new pathway. We want to replace gather-and-removal practices with the humane capture of mares in order to treat them with the immunocontraception vaccine PZP and release them back to the range (also known as capture/treat/release). We want to replace gathers using helicopters with passive gather techniques, such as water and nutrient-bait trapping (placing water or nutrients in an area where they are scarce to gradually lure and then build a temporary corral around the horses). And we want to develop and use efficient techniques for remotely delivering PZP to mares on the range so gathers are no longer needed.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is starting to embrace this way of thinking. In the coming weeks, the BLM plans to conduct capture/treat/release programs at 11 wild horse herd management areas in the near future. This is a tremendous step forward in creating a more humane and sustainable wild horse management program and we applaud the BLM for its efforts. Once the BLM fully embraces this approach, it will save millions of tax dollars and get the agency off the treadmill of rounding up horses and keeping them in long-term holding pens on the government dole.
Field researchers for The HSUS are currently studying the use of passive gather techniques to gently lure wild horses to areas where they can be treated with the PZP immunocontraception vaccine and released without ever being captured. In the Sand Wash Basin management area, our researchers recently reported that they were able to successfully treat 82 percent of previously treated mares via remote delivery, without the need for any type of gather.
For more than 20 years, The HSUS has been conducting wildlife contraception research and we’re confident that PZP is a valuable tool for the humane and efficient management of wild horses. We also understand that, as with any new technology, there may be skepticism or concern that the vaccine may have unintended consequences. We encourage anyone looking for more information to browse this webpage, which more broadly describes our vision for wild horse management and answers some frequently asked questions about PZP.
Save Your Sight: 6 Eye Problems Women Face
As hormones wane, so does your eyesight. Find out how to protect your peepers, even if you have decades to go before retirement...
Our joints ache, bones break and faces wrinkle. Now add eye problems to the list of age-related problems women face. The longer we live, the more beating our peepers take.
According to a Duke University study, women are more likely than men to develop vision problems as they get older.
Longevity is a factor, but blame our hormones too, specifically menopause, says James V. Aquavella, M.D., professor of ophthalmology at the University of Rochester Eye Institute in Rochester, N.Y.
That’s right, your eyes are two more body parts affected by fluctuating estrogen and progesterone levels.
Still, you can take steps to save your sight, from eating better to giving up smoking. Here are 6 age-related eye conditions and what you can do about them.
1. Cataracts
What they are: Cataracts, the world’s leading cause of blindness, are the clouding of the eye’s normally clear lens. It’s a big problem for women because they’re living longer, says Ruth D. Williams, an ophthalmologist at the Wheaton (Ill.) Eye Clinic.
Although cataracts can happen at any age, they’re more likely after age 40.
Symptoms: The most common sign is cloudy or blurred vision. You may also experience glare, poor night vision or a sense that what you’re seeing, including colors, is less vivid.
Why we get them: No one really knows. Cataracts result when proteins in the lens clump, interfering with light as it enters the eye.
Treatment: Only surgery can cure a cataract, although sometimes corrective glasses and lighting changes can improve vision.
In a cataract operation, the eye lens is removed and replaced with an intraocular lens (IOL) implant. The surgery improves sight in 95% of patients.
Best preventive steps:
Ditch the cigarettes. Smoking can increase risk – the result of fewer antioxidants in the bloodstream and less blood flow to the retina.
Wear a wide-brimmed hat and good sunglasses. Williams recommends glasses with 100% UV filter, which will “protect the eyes from ultraviolet A and B rays that increase the development of cataracts.”
Lose weight and exercise. Being overweight raises your risk, perhaps because of higher glucose (blood sugar) levels.
Eat fish. A Harvard study found that omega-3 fatty acids may help ward off cataracts and other eye disorders. Women who ate more fatty fish — which contain omega-3s — lowered their risk of cataracts by 12%. Eat fish twice a week or take a 1,000 mg fish oil supplement daily, Aquavella says.
2. Glaucoma
What it is: The second leading cause of blindness in the U.S., glaucoma occurs when pressure in the eye — intraocular pressure or IOP — is too high, damaging the optic nerve.
The most common type, open-angle glaucoma, affects men and women equally. But women are 2-4 times more likely than men to get the more dangerous closed-angle glaucoma, which accounts for 10% of cases, Williams says.
Why? Blame the shape of our eyes.
“The front chamber between the iris and cornea is shallower in women than in men,” she says. That can block fluids from draining out of the eye, which increases pressure.
Symptoms: Open-angle glaucoma is often painless and you may not realize your sight is damaged until about 40% of the optic nerve is destroyed. It first affects peripheral vision, so your tip-off may be black spots in your side vision.
With closed-angle glaucoma, you may feel a sudden sharp pain in your eye, nausea and blurred vision. Because people can lose their vision within three hours after symptoms appear, it’s considered a medical emergency.
Why we get it: Glaucoma can also result from gene mutations or medications that can raise eye pressure, such as corticosteroids. Hispanics and blacks have a higher risk.
Treatment: Prescription eye drops, which you’ll need to use throughout your life, can lower eye pressure, delaying glaucoma’s progression. Surgery to improve fluid drainage is also an option if drops don’t work or if they cause side effects like burning or low blood pressure.
Best preventive steps: Get good eye exams. “The prognosis for glaucoma is excellent if you find it and treat it early,” Williams says.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends a baseline exam at age 40, followed by one every 2-4 years for those 40-65 years old, and every 1-2 years for anyone older than 65.
3. Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)
What it is: This condition gradually destroys your sharp, central vision — the sight that helps you drive and read. It affects the central part of the retina (the macula), which controls fine detail vision.
The most common type, “dry AMD,” occurs when the retina shrinks and small clumps of debris — called “drusen” — accumulate underneath it, blocking sight.
The other, more serious type, neovascular AMD (“wet AMD”), accounts for 10% of cases. It occurs when new blood vessels grow between the retina and eye’s outer layer. When the vessels leak, they cause scarring. Wet AMD starts out as dry AMD.
It's the No. 1 cause of vision loss in people over 40 in the U.S.
“Its incidence increases with every decade of age,” Aquavella says. More women suffer from it because they “tend to live 5-7 years longer than men.”
Symptoms: Most people feel no symptoms initially, but some may experience a blank spot or haziness in their central vision and color perception.
Why we get it: Doctors don’t know what causes AMD, although genetics may play a role. Other factors — age, smoking, a light-colored eye, obesity — may raise risk.
Treatment: If you have dry AMD, your doctor will monitor it to see if it’s progressing to wet AMD. He or she may also suggest special supplements of antioxidants and zinc to slow its progression.
For wet AMD, laser treatments can help destroy new blood vessels; your physician might also recommend medications to block their growth.
Best preventive steps: Many of the same steps that prevent cataracts help with AMD.
Some research suggests a link between AMD, high cholesterol, obesity and heart disease. A study at the University of Sydney, Australia, found that eating fish lowered risk.
So stock up on low-fat meats — including two weekly servings of fish, greens and whole grains — and exercise at least 30 minutes a day, to protect your eyes… and your heart.
4. Dry Eye Syndrome
What it is: This occurs when your eyes produce too few tears or when one of the three tear layers gets weak. Tears have mucous, water and oily outer layers. Each is produced by a different part of the eye. When one goes on the fritz, dry eyes result.
Symptoms: Your eyes may burn, sting or feel gritty. Vision may be blurry or you may blink more. Contrary to the name, you may appear weepy more often — the dryness stimulates more tear production.
Why we get it: As we age, we produce less oil, so the watery layer evaporates more easily. Women are more susceptible.
“In postmenopausal women, the [shift in] balance between estrogen and progesterone is responsible for changes on the surface of the eye,” Aquavella says.
Treatment: Your doctor may prescribe lubricating drops. If your eyes are inflamed, prescription steroidal or cyclosporine eye drops (Restasis) may reduce inflammation. If these don’t work, your physician may place tiny silicone plugs in tear-duct openings to keep them from draining too quickly.
If all else fails, she may recommend surgery to close the ducts.
Best preventive steps: Sunlight and heat can dry out eyes, so shield them with close-fitting, large sunglasses.
Eat fish several times a week, Aquavella says.
“The omega-3 fatty acids in fish are anti-inflammatories and improve the quality of the fat surface on the tear film.”
5. Diabetic Retinopathy
What it is: Diabetes can damage the eye’s blood vessels, which causes vision loss. Called diabetic retinopathy, it’s the most common diabetic eye disease.
Symptoms: There are no early signs. But bleeding in the eye — a symptom that occurs in later stages — will cause spots in sight or even vision loss.
Why we get it: When blood sugar levels are too high, the vessels that feed the retina weaken and eventually leak. The leaks cause the macula to swell. In its most dangerous form, new blood vessels grow, then bleed, causing the retina to detach from the back of the eye. It can lead to blindness.
Treatment: “If you have diabetic retinopathy, check-ups every six months are mandatory,” Aquavilla says. Insulin or other medications can help keep your blood glucose levels under control.
You may also slow the disease’s progress by lowering high blood pressure and cholesterol levels with medications, diet and exercise. The doctor may use laser treatment to close leaking blood vessels as well.
Best preventive steps: Most important, control blood sugar levels and keep blood pressure and cholesterol low. Quit smoking: It may keep the disease at bay — or at least slow its progression.
6. Pregnancy-Related Eye Changes
What they are: Similar to menopause, the hormone shifts that occur in pregnancy can cause several temporary eye conditions, such as dry eye and corneal swelling.
Symptoms: Your eyes may feel scratchy or you may have blurry vision, increased eye pressure or sensitivity to light.
Why we get them: Fluctuating hormone levels affect the eye surface, which may lead to dry eyes. They can also affect the curve of the cornea, Aquavella says.
Treatment: This depends how your eye changes. If you have corneal swelling, your doctor may suggest that you wear glasses because contact lenses can irritate eyes. If your eyes are dry, lubricating drops, safe during pregnancy, may help.
If you already have an eye condition, such as glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy, your obstetrician and ophthalmologist will ask to see you more frequently.
Your doctor will also monitor your blood pressure, because high blood pressure can cause detached retinas.
Best preventive steps: Because eye changes sometimes indicate high blood pressure or gestational diabetes (a form of diabetes pregnant women get), it’s best to have your eyes checked during your pregnancy and to let your doctor know of any vision changes.
Check out our eye-health slideshow, including vision simulators from EyeCare America.
Are You Taking Care of Your Eye Health?
As we age, vision and eye health deteriorate. By tackling your eye health problems now, you can prevent or slow the progression of vision loss in the future.
The information contained on www.lifescript.com (the "Site") is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to substitute for advice from your doctor or healthcare professional. This information should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional regarding any medical condition. Information and statements provided by the site about dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Lifescript does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, third-party products, procedures, opinions, or other information mentioned on the Site. Reliance on any information provided by Lifescript is solely at your own risk.
Rate This Article: Currently 3/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 (Votes: 441) (Avg: 4.36) Sponsored by:
Our joints ache, bones break and faces wrinkle. Now add eye problems to the list of age-related problems women face. The longer we live, the more beating our peepers take.
According to a Duke University study, women are more likely than men to develop vision problems as they get older.
Longevity is a factor, but blame our hormones too, specifically menopause, says James V. Aquavella, M.D., professor of ophthalmology at the University of Rochester Eye Institute in Rochester, N.Y.
That’s right, your eyes are two more body parts affected by fluctuating estrogen and progesterone levels.
Still, you can take steps to save your sight, from eating better to giving up smoking. Here are 6 age-related eye conditions and what you can do about them.
1. Cataracts
What they are: Cataracts, the world’s leading cause of blindness, are the clouding of the eye’s normally clear lens. It’s a big problem for women because they’re living longer, says Ruth D. Williams, an ophthalmologist at the Wheaton (Ill.) Eye Clinic.
Although cataracts can happen at any age, they’re more likely after age 40.
Symptoms: The most common sign is cloudy or blurred vision. You may also experience glare, poor night vision or a sense that what you’re seeing, including colors, is less vivid.
Why we get them: No one really knows. Cataracts result when proteins in the lens clump, interfering with light as it enters the eye.
Treatment: Only surgery can cure a cataract, although sometimes corrective glasses and lighting changes can improve vision.
In a cataract operation, the eye lens is removed and replaced with an intraocular lens (IOL) implant. The surgery improves sight in 95% of patients.
Best preventive steps:
Ditch the cigarettes. Smoking can increase risk – the result of fewer antioxidants in the bloodstream and less blood flow to the retina.
Wear a wide-brimmed hat and good sunglasses. Williams recommends glasses with 100% UV filter, which will “protect the eyes from ultraviolet A and B rays that increase the development of cataracts.”
Lose weight and exercise. Being overweight raises your risk, perhaps because of higher glucose (blood sugar) levels.
Eat fish. A Harvard study found that omega-3 fatty acids may help ward off cataracts and other eye disorders. Women who ate more fatty fish — which contain omega-3s — lowered their risk of cataracts by 12%. Eat fish twice a week or take a 1,000 mg fish oil supplement daily, Aquavella says.
2. Glaucoma
What it is: The second leading cause of blindness in the U.S., glaucoma occurs when pressure in the eye — intraocular pressure or IOP — is too high, damaging the optic nerve.
The most common type, open-angle glaucoma, affects men and women equally. But women are 2-4 times more likely than men to get the more dangerous closed-angle glaucoma, which accounts for 10% of cases, Williams says.
Why? Blame the shape of our eyes.
“The front chamber between the iris and cornea is shallower in women than in men,” she says. That can block fluids from draining out of the eye, which increases pressure.
Symptoms: Open-angle glaucoma is often painless and you may not realize your sight is damaged until about 40% of the optic nerve is destroyed. It first affects peripheral vision, so your tip-off may be black spots in your side vision.
With closed-angle glaucoma, you may feel a sudden sharp pain in your eye, nausea and blurred vision. Because people can lose their vision within three hours after symptoms appear, it’s considered a medical emergency.
Why we get it: Glaucoma can also result from gene mutations or medications that can raise eye pressure, such as corticosteroids. Hispanics and blacks have a higher risk.
Treatment: Prescription eye drops, which you’ll need to use throughout your life, can lower eye pressure, delaying glaucoma’s progression. Surgery to improve fluid drainage is also an option if drops don’t work or if they cause side effects like burning or low blood pressure.
Best preventive steps: Get good eye exams. “The prognosis for glaucoma is excellent if you find it and treat it early,” Williams says.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends a baseline exam at age 40, followed by one every 2-4 years for those 40-65 years old, and every 1-2 years for anyone older than 65.
3. Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)
What it is: This condition gradually destroys your sharp, central vision — the sight that helps you drive and read. It affects the central part of the retina (the macula), which controls fine detail vision.
The most common type, “dry AMD,” occurs when the retina shrinks and small clumps of debris — called “drusen” — accumulate underneath it, blocking sight.
The other, more serious type, neovascular AMD (“wet AMD”), accounts for 10% of cases. It occurs when new blood vessels grow between the retina and eye’s outer layer. When the vessels leak, they cause scarring. Wet AMD starts out as dry AMD.
It's the No. 1 cause of vision loss in people over 40 in the U.S.
“Its incidence increases with every decade of age,” Aquavella says. More women suffer from it because they “tend to live 5-7 years longer than men.”
Symptoms: Most people feel no symptoms initially, but some may experience a blank spot or haziness in their central vision and color perception.
Why we get it: Doctors don’t know what causes AMD, although genetics may play a role. Other factors — age, smoking, a light-colored eye, obesity — may raise risk.
Treatment: If you have dry AMD, your doctor will monitor it to see if it’s progressing to wet AMD. He or she may also suggest special supplements of antioxidants and zinc to slow its progression.
For wet AMD, laser treatments can help destroy new blood vessels; your physician might also recommend medications to block their growth.
Best preventive steps: Many of the same steps that prevent cataracts help with AMD.
Some research suggests a link between AMD, high cholesterol, obesity and heart disease. A study at the University of Sydney, Australia, found that eating fish lowered risk.
So stock up on low-fat meats — including two weekly servings of fish, greens and whole grains — and exercise at least 30 minutes a day, to protect your eyes… and your heart.
4. Dry Eye Syndrome
What it is: This occurs when your eyes produce too few tears or when one of the three tear layers gets weak. Tears have mucous, water and oily outer layers. Each is produced by a different part of the eye. When one goes on the fritz, dry eyes result.
Symptoms: Your eyes may burn, sting or feel gritty. Vision may be blurry or you may blink more. Contrary to the name, you may appear weepy more often — the dryness stimulates more tear production.
Why we get it: As we age, we produce less oil, so the watery layer evaporates more easily. Women are more susceptible.
“In postmenopausal women, the [shift in] balance between estrogen and progesterone is responsible for changes on the surface of the eye,” Aquavella says.
Treatment: Your doctor may prescribe lubricating drops. If your eyes are inflamed, prescription steroidal or cyclosporine eye drops (Restasis) may reduce inflammation. If these don’t work, your physician may place tiny silicone plugs in tear-duct openings to keep them from draining too quickly.
If all else fails, she may recommend surgery to close the ducts.
Best preventive steps: Sunlight and heat can dry out eyes, so shield them with close-fitting, large sunglasses.
Eat fish several times a week, Aquavella says.
“The omega-3 fatty acids in fish are anti-inflammatories and improve the quality of the fat surface on the tear film.”
5. Diabetic Retinopathy
What it is: Diabetes can damage the eye’s blood vessels, which causes vision loss. Called diabetic retinopathy, it’s the most common diabetic eye disease.
Symptoms: There are no early signs. But bleeding in the eye — a symptom that occurs in later stages — will cause spots in sight or even vision loss.
Why we get it: When blood sugar levels are too high, the vessels that feed the retina weaken and eventually leak. The leaks cause the macula to swell. In its most dangerous form, new blood vessels grow, then bleed, causing the retina to detach from the back of the eye. It can lead to blindness.
Treatment: “If you have diabetic retinopathy, check-ups every six months are mandatory,” Aquavilla says. Insulin or other medications can help keep your blood glucose levels under control.
You may also slow the disease’s progress by lowering high blood pressure and cholesterol levels with medications, diet and exercise. The doctor may use laser treatment to close leaking blood vessels as well.
Best preventive steps: Most important, control blood sugar levels and keep blood pressure and cholesterol low. Quit smoking: It may keep the disease at bay — or at least slow its progression.
6. Pregnancy-Related Eye Changes
What they are: Similar to menopause, the hormone shifts that occur in pregnancy can cause several temporary eye conditions, such as dry eye and corneal swelling.
Symptoms: Your eyes may feel scratchy or you may have blurry vision, increased eye pressure or sensitivity to light.
Why we get them: Fluctuating hormone levels affect the eye surface, which may lead to dry eyes. They can also affect the curve of the cornea, Aquavella says.
Treatment: This depends how your eye changes. If you have corneal swelling, your doctor may suggest that you wear glasses because contact lenses can irritate eyes. If your eyes are dry, lubricating drops, safe during pregnancy, may help.
If you already have an eye condition, such as glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy, your obstetrician and ophthalmologist will ask to see you more frequently.
Your doctor will also monitor your blood pressure, because high blood pressure can cause detached retinas.
Best preventive steps: Because eye changes sometimes indicate high blood pressure or gestational diabetes (a form of diabetes pregnant women get), it’s best to have your eyes checked during your pregnancy and to let your doctor know of any vision changes.
Check out our eye-health slideshow, including vision simulators from EyeCare America.
Are You Taking Care of Your Eye Health?
As we age, vision and eye health deteriorate. By tackling your eye health problems now, you can prevent or slow the progression of vision loss in the future.
The information contained on www.lifescript.com (the "Site") is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to substitute for advice from your doctor or healthcare professional. This information should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional regarding any medical condition. Information and statements provided by the site about dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Lifescript does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, third-party products, procedures, opinions, or other information mentioned on the Site. Reliance on any information provided by Lifescript is solely at your own risk.
Rate This Article: Currently 3/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 (Votes: 441) (Avg: 4.36) Sponsored by:
How to regulate your blood sugar
If you didn’t pay too much attention to your blood sugar, here are some herbs and minerals I use in my practice that naturally improve your body’s response to insulin. They’re completely safe and keep your blood sugar in check.
These are my favorite nutrients you can use right away to help control your blood sugar:
Gymnema Sylvestre: For more than 2,000 years, people in India have used the herb gymnema sylvestre to help control blood sugar. In fact, the leaves of this climbing plant are prized by practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine, the holistic system of healing.
The herb is also called “gumar,” which literally means “destroyer of sugar” in Hindi. This name describes the way that chewing the leaves interferes with your ability to taste sweetness. Because this amazing herb decreases the sensation of sweetness in many foods, it may reduce your cravings for sugary snacks.
In one study, patients who took 400 mg of gymnema sylvestre extract daily for 18 to 20 months along with their oral medications showed a significant reduction in their fasting blood-sugar levels.1
Chromium: Another weapon in nature’s arsenal of sugar fighters is the mineral chromium. Chromium aids in digestion and helps move blood glucose from the bloodstream into the cells for energy. It also helps turn fats, carbohydrates and proteins into energy.
What’s more, chromium is critical for healthy insulin function. Without enough chromium in your body, insulin just doesn’t work properly.
Chromium exists in many foods including brewer’s yeast, meats, potatoes (especially in the skin), cheeses, molasses, whole-grain breads and cereals, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
Despite the wide availability of chromium from food sources, research shows that 90 percent of American adults have a chromium-deficient diet. This could be a key reason why an increasing number of Americans suffer blood-sugar problems.
Cinnamon: Recent scientific discoveries prove that this commonly used spice helps regulate blood sugar in ways previously unknown.
Scientists at the Maryland-based Human Nutrition Research Center were studying the effects of common foods on blood sugar. They found that when patients ate apple pie, their blood-sugar levels actually improved.
Further investigation revealed it was the cinnamon in the apple pie that helped their blood-sugar levels. Researchers discovered that cinnamon increases your glucose metabolism. It contains a compound called methylhydroxy chalcone polymer, or MHCP for short, that works with insulin to help process glucose.
In fact, a laboratory test conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed MHCP increased glucose metabolism by roughly 20 times.
People who control their blood sugar with cinnamon use around half a teaspoon before meals.
Banaba Leaf Extract: Traditionally, people living in the Philippines, South Asia and India have brewed a banaba leaf tea to help regulate blood sugar.
Medical scientists believe that banaba leaf’s beneficial effects on blood sugar are due to its high concentration of corosolic acid, a natural compound extracted from its leaves. Corosolic acid mimics insulin by moving sugar out of your bloodstream and into your cells. And numerous scientific studies have proven banaba leaf’s effectiveness.
In another study, patients with blood-sugar concerns took a supplement containing banaba leaf or a placebo three times a day for four weeks. The placebo group had no change, but the banaba-leaf group achieved very good results for blood-sugar balancing.2
A dose of no more than 50 mg of banaba leaf extract with 1-2 percent corosolic acid will help you control your blood sugar.
Fenugreek: Fenugreek is an herb native to the Mediterranean, Ukraine, India and China.
Practitioners of Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine have used the herb for more than 2,000 years. Modern scientists now know fenugreek helps balance your cholesterol, triglycerides and blood glucose.
Fenugreek seed stimulates insulin release. This helps food sugars reach your cells properly. A well-known study published in the British Medical Journal divided patients with blood-sugar concerns into two groups. Group one received one gram of fenugreek seed extract and group two received a combination of dietary control, exercise and a placebo capsule for two months.
Group one saw more positive results for blood sugar, insulin resistance, cholesterol and triglycerides compared to group two.3
And, three more studies confirm that fenugreek seed extract helps stabilize blood sugar in patients with blood sugar and insulin problems.
You don’t want to bite into a fenugreek seed, as they are also very bitter. But if you roast them in a pan for a minute or two, without burning them, they’ll taste a bit caramel-like. Then you can add them to other spices for a complex mix of flavor.
You can also make a tea with dried fenugreek leaves by steeping one or two teaspoons of the leaves in two cups of boiling water for five minutes.
Bitter Melon: Although it may be unknown to most people in the West, bitter melon has long been used in South America, the Caribbean, East Africa and Asia as food and a natural medicine. And scientific studies prove its value for treating blood-sugar problems.
For example, two studies show bitter melon could play a key role in helping to balance insulin in your body, which, of course, means healthy blood-sugar control.4,5 And another study showed bitter melon had positive effects on the serum glucose levels of those taking it, following both fasting and eating.
Bitter melon is often used in stir-fry dishes. Cut the melon open lengthwise without peeling. Then remove the seeds and the white “pith” inside, and chop it like you would a green pepper. Boil the melon until the pieces are tender, and add them to your favorite stir-fry recipe.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
These are my favorite nutrients you can use right away to help control your blood sugar:
Gymnema Sylvestre: For more than 2,000 years, people in India have used the herb gymnema sylvestre to help control blood sugar. In fact, the leaves of this climbing plant are prized by practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine, the holistic system of healing.
The herb is also called “gumar,” which literally means “destroyer of sugar” in Hindi. This name describes the way that chewing the leaves interferes with your ability to taste sweetness. Because this amazing herb decreases the sensation of sweetness in many foods, it may reduce your cravings for sugary snacks.
In one study, patients who took 400 mg of gymnema sylvestre extract daily for 18 to 20 months along with their oral medications showed a significant reduction in their fasting blood-sugar levels.1
Chromium: Another weapon in nature’s arsenal of sugar fighters is the mineral chromium. Chromium aids in digestion and helps move blood glucose from the bloodstream into the cells for energy. It also helps turn fats, carbohydrates and proteins into energy.
What’s more, chromium is critical for healthy insulin function. Without enough chromium in your body, insulin just doesn’t work properly.
Chromium exists in many foods including brewer’s yeast, meats, potatoes (especially in the skin), cheeses, molasses, whole-grain breads and cereals, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
Despite the wide availability of chromium from food sources, research shows that 90 percent of American adults have a chromium-deficient diet. This could be a key reason why an increasing number of Americans suffer blood-sugar problems.
Cinnamon: Recent scientific discoveries prove that this commonly used spice helps regulate blood sugar in ways previously unknown.
Scientists at the Maryland-based Human Nutrition Research Center were studying the effects of common foods on blood sugar. They found that when patients ate apple pie, their blood-sugar levels actually improved.
Further investigation revealed it was the cinnamon in the apple pie that helped their blood-sugar levels. Researchers discovered that cinnamon increases your glucose metabolism. It contains a compound called methylhydroxy chalcone polymer, or MHCP for short, that works with insulin to help process glucose.
In fact, a laboratory test conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed MHCP increased glucose metabolism by roughly 20 times.
People who control their blood sugar with cinnamon use around half a teaspoon before meals.
Banaba Leaf Extract: Traditionally, people living in the Philippines, South Asia and India have brewed a banaba leaf tea to help regulate blood sugar.
Medical scientists believe that banaba leaf’s beneficial effects on blood sugar are due to its high concentration of corosolic acid, a natural compound extracted from its leaves. Corosolic acid mimics insulin by moving sugar out of your bloodstream and into your cells. And numerous scientific studies have proven banaba leaf’s effectiveness.
In another study, patients with blood-sugar concerns took a supplement containing banaba leaf or a placebo three times a day for four weeks. The placebo group had no change, but the banaba-leaf group achieved very good results for blood-sugar balancing.2
A dose of no more than 50 mg of banaba leaf extract with 1-2 percent corosolic acid will help you control your blood sugar.
Fenugreek: Fenugreek is an herb native to the Mediterranean, Ukraine, India and China.
Practitioners of Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine have used the herb for more than 2,000 years. Modern scientists now know fenugreek helps balance your cholesterol, triglycerides and blood glucose.
Fenugreek seed stimulates insulin release. This helps food sugars reach your cells properly. A well-known study published in the British Medical Journal divided patients with blood-sugar concerns into two groups. Group one received one gram of fenugreek seed extract and group two received a combination of dietary control, exercise and a placebo capsule for two months.
Group one saw more positive results for blood sugar, insulin resistance, cholesterol and triglycerides compared to group two.3
And, three more studies confirm that fenugreek seed extract helps stabilize blood sugar in patients with blood sugar and insulin problems.
You don’t want to bite into a fenugreek seed, as they are also very bitter. But if you roast them in a pan for a minute or two, without burning them, they’ll taste a bit caramel-like. Then you can add them to other spices for a complex mix of flavor.
You can also make a tea with dried fenugreek leaves by steeping one or two teaspoons of the leaves in two cups of boiling water for five minutes.
Bitter Melon: Although it may be unknown to most people in the West, bitter melon has long been used in South America, the Caribbean, East Africa and Asia as food and a natural medicine. And scientific studies prove its value for treating blood-sugar problems.
For example, two studies show bitter melon could play a key role in helping to balance insulin in your body, which, of course, means healthy blood-sugar control.4,5 And another study showed bitter melon had positive effects on the serum glucose levels of those taking it, following both fasting and eating.
Bitter melon is often used in stir-fry dishes. Cut the melon open lengthwise without peeling. Then remove the seeds and the white “pith” inside, and chop it like you would a green pepper. Boil the melon until the pieces are tender, and add them to your favorite stir-fry recipe.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
Turnaround on food allergies
Millions of Americans fight chronic pain and illness without realizing there's an easy solution--one that could end the suffering practically overnight.
You could even be one of them.
It could be your arthritis... your asthma... or even a stomach condition--and your own doctor won't tell you the answer because he doesn't believe in it.
Now, a new study sets the record straight, confirming that millions of Americans suffer from food allergies--and that those allergies cause very real illnesses, from breathing disorders to skin conditions.
Maybe now your doctor will listen!
Then again, that may be too much to ask for--because many mainstream docs have spent their entire careers in denial of food allergies as a cause of illness. One report earlier this year suggested that half of all food allergies were just made up.
Some doctors even believe that only children can have food allergies.
It's going to take time to change those attitudes, but the new study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology is a huge step in the right direction.
It finds that our most common allergy is peanuts, with 1.5 percent of us allergic to goobers. Another 1 percent were found to be allergic to shrimp, with 0.4 percent of us allergic to eggs and 0.2 percent allergic to milk.
The researchers also found that 1.3 percent of Americans are allergic to two or more of those foods.
Add it all up, and you get 7.5 million people fighting food allergies--and even the researchers behind the study say that's just a drop in the bucket, since they only focused on the most severe allergies to those four specific foods.
Throw in less severe allergies as well as allergies and sensitivities to other foods--including wheat, soy, fish and tree nuts--and there could be many millions more who are being hurt by what they eat every single day.
"It's among the most common chronic diseases in America," Hopkins Children's Hospital's Dr. Robert Wood, an investigator on the multicenter study, told the Los Angeles Times.
In fact, the new report acknowledges that food allergies can cause or worsen eczema, hay fever and asthma.
That's last one's a biggie--because doctors have been especially resistant to the idea of food allergies as a cause of asthma. But the study found a clear connection: Patients with food allergies have a dramatically higher risk of both asthma and hospitalizations due to asthma attacks.
"Our study suggests that food allergies may be an important factor, and even an under-recognized trigger for severe asthma exacerbations," lead study author Dr. Andrew H. Liu said in a news release. "People with a food allergy and asthma should closely monitor both conditions and be aware that they might be related."
Now that the mainstream is finally acknowledging the role of food allergies in asthma, maybe next they'll take a closer look at other the other diseases and conditions these allergies can trigger, including arthritis, fibromyalgia, insomnia, depression, and headaches.
But recognition is only half the battle.
The other half is the diagnosis and treatment--and, quite frankly, many doctors are neither trained nor equipped to handle either.
If you think you might be suffering from food allergies, or simply suffer from a chronic condition that has stymied your own doctor, find a good naturopathic physician with a proven track record in allergy testing.
In some cases, thorough tests will reveal the real culprit. In others, you might need to try a food-elimination diet. That's when you eliminate all the foods that might cause allergies and then slowly reintroduce them, tracking your diet and symptoms in a journal as you do.
I'm not going to lie: It can take a real effort and commitment.
But it's worth it--because if you can find that one food or ingredient that's making you sick, you can learn to avoid it.
And once you do that, you can live better than you have in years.
On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls
You could even be one of them.
It could be your arthritis... your asthma... or even a stomach condition--and your own doctor won't tell you the answer because he doesn't believe in it.
Now, a new study sets the record straight, confirming that millions of Americans suffer from food allergies--and that those allergies cause very real illnesses, from breathing disorders to skin conditions.
Maybe now your doctor will listen!
Then again, that may be too much to ask for--because many mainstream docs have spent their entire careers in denial of food allergies as a cause of illness. One report earlier this year suggested that half of all food allergies were just made up.
Some doctors even believe that only children can have food allergies.
It's going to take time to change those attitudes, but the new study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology is a huge step in the right direction.
It finds that our most common allergy is peanuts, with 1.5 percent of us allergic to goobers. Another 1 percent were found to be allergic to shrimp, with 0.4 percent of us allergic to eggs and 0.2 percent allergic to milk.
The researchers also found that 1.3 percent of Americans are allergic to two or more of those foods.
Add it all up, and you get 7.5 million people fighting food allergies--and even the researchers behind the study say that's just a drop in the bucket, since they only focused on the most severe allergies to those four specific foods.
Throw in less severe allergies as well as allergies and sensitivities to other foods--including wheat, soy, fish and tree nuts--and there could be many millions more who are being hurt by what they eat every single day.
"It's among the most common chronic diseases in America," Hopkins Children's Hospital's Dr. Robert Wood, an investigator on the multicenter study, told the Los Angeles Times.
In fact, the new report acknowledges that food allergies can cause or worsen eczema, hay fever and asthma.
That's last one's a biggie--because doctors have been especially resistant to the idea of food allergies as a cause of asthma. But the study found a clear connection: Patients with food allergies have a dramatically higher risk of both asthma and hospitalizations due to asthma attacks.
"Our study suggests that food allergies may be an important factor, and even an under-recognized trigger for severe asthma exacerbations," lead study author Dr. Andrew H. Liu said in a news release. "People with a food allergy and asthma should closely monitor both conditions and be aware that they might be related."
Now that the mainstream is finally acknowledging the role of food allergies in asthma, maybe next they'll take a closer look at other the other diseases and conditions these allergies can trigger, including arthritis, fibromyalgia, insomnia, depression, and headaches.
But recognition is only half the battle.
The other half is the diagnosis and treatment--and, quite frankly, many doctors are neither trained nor equipped to handle either.
If you think you might be suffering from food allergies, or simply suffer from a chronic condition that has stymied your own doctor, find a good naturopathic physician with a proven track record in allergy testing.
In some cases, thorough tests will reveal the real culprit. In others, you might need to try a food-elimination diet. That's when you eliminate all the foods that might cause allergies and then slowly reintroduce them, tracking your diet and symptoms in a journal as you do.
I'm not going to lie: It can take a real effort and commitment.
But it's worth it--because if you can find that one food or ingredient that's making you sick, you can learn to avoid it.
And once you do that, you can live better than you have in years.
On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls
Monday, November 29, 2010
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
On any given Sunday, you will find me alone. Filling myself up. Cherishing life and loving every solitary moment.
Cough and cold meds withdrawal is working: study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The number of young children going to the emergency room after taking too much cough and cold medicine was cut in half after drug companies took medications for their age group off the market, according to a new study.
Doctors say the research, published today in the journal Pediatrics, shows that taking the medications off the shelves did what it was intended to do - but that there is still more that both drug makers and parents can do to protect kids from ending up in the emergency room.
"Overall, I think this is really good," said Dr. Daniel Budnitz, the lead author on the study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, "people might say, 'Wait a minute, these drugs can't be marketed anymore. It should be zero (emergency room) visits.'"
In late 2007, manufacturers of cough and cold medicines came together and decided that they would stop selling these medications for use in kids less than two years old. Since then, the withdrawal has been updated to include cold and cough medicines for all kids less than 4 years old. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also recommended in January 2008 that parents avoid the use of these products to treat children less than 2 "because serious and potentially life-threatening side effects can occur."
Before the initial withdrawal, "there were no solid data to show that cough and cold medications actually work for kids, and they do cause side effects sometimes," said Dr. Eric Lavonas, the associate director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center in Denver, who was not involved with the study.
The antihistamines and decongestants in some of these medicines can especially be a problem when kids take more than the recommended dose, said Dr. Michael Rieder, who studies drugs and drug effects in kids at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and was also not involved with the current research.
To examine the impact of taking these medicines off the market, Budnitz and his colleagues looked at the number of kids going to emergency rooms for problems related to cough and cold medications before and after they were pulled. Using a sample of about 60 hospitals in the United States, the authors estimated the number of these cases nationwide pre- and post-withdrawal.
In the 14 months before the original withdrawal was made, about 2,800 kids younger than 2 years old went to the emergency room after they had taken cough and cold medicines. In the 14 months after, that number dropped to approximately 1,250 kids. For older kids, the number of emergency room visits didn't change significantly.
"What this study shows is exactly what you expect," Lavonas said. "People are no longer buying these medications for use by small children, and as a result small children are not getting into them by accident."
Kids who show up in the emergency room for problems related to these medications often take too much when a parent isn't looking, but sometimes it's the parents themselves that give the kid too much by mistake, Budnitz said. The good news is, there are ways for the companies that make the medications and for parents to cut down on both of those problems.
Cough and cold medicines made for older kids and for adults need to be designed so that it's much harder for kids to get into them and accidentally take a dangerous amount, Lavonas said. In addition, instructions on the medicine bottles should be more obvious about the appropriate dose for kids who are old enough to take them, he added.
For parents, Budnitz said, the important thing is to not give cough and cold medications to kids younger than 4, and to make sure that all of the family's medicines are kept "up and away and out of sight."
When kids are sick, parents can give appropriate doses of Tylenol and make sure their kid is comfortable and drinking plenty of fluids, Rieder said.
If your kid does get into a cough and cold medication bottle and take too much, you shouldn't necessarily run to the nearest emergency room, Lavonas said.
"If your child is not critically ill right in front of you, your very first call should be to your local poison control center," he said.
Most of the kids in this study probably did not need to go to the emergency room, he said - and a poison control center can tell parents what to look for and when going to the hospital is necessary, he said.
Doctors are hopeful that going forward fewer and fewer children might be showing up at the emergency room after taking too much cough and cold medication - provided that both companies and parents do their part.
The withdrawal "has been successful in dramatically reducing events in young children," Lavonas said. "Perfect success would be no child ever harmed."
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/gas77m Pediatrics, online November 22, 2010.
Doctors say the research, published today in the journal Pediatrics, shows that taking the medications off the shelves did what it was intended to do - but that there is still more that both drug makers and parents can do to protect kids from ending up in the emergency room.
"Overall, I think this is really good," said Dr. Daniel Budnitz, the lead author on the study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, "people might say, 'Wait a minute, these drugs can't be marketed anymore. It should be zero (emergency room) visits.'"
In late 2007, manufacturers of cough and cold medicines came together and decided that they would stop selling these medications for use in kids less than two years old. Since then, the withdrawal has been updated to include cold and cough medicines for all kids less than 4 years old. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also recommended in January 2008 that parents avoid the use of these products to treat children less than 2 "because serious and potentially life-threatening side effects can occur."
Before the initial withdrawal, "there were no solid data to show that cough and cold medications actually work for kids, and they do cause side effects sometimes," said Dr. Eric Lavonas, the associate director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center in Denver, who was not involved with the study.
The antihistamines and decongestants in some of these medicines can especially be a problem when kids take more than the recommended dose, said Dr. Michael Rieder, who studies drugs and drug effects in kids at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and was also not involved with the current research.
To examine the impact of taking these medicines off the market, Budnitz and his colleagues looked at the number of kids going to emergency rooms for problems related to cough and cold medications before and after they were pulled. Using a sample of about 60 hospitals in the United States, the authors estimated the number of these cases nationwide pre- and post-withdrawal.
In the 14 months before the original withdrawal was made, about 2,800 kids younger than 2 years old went to the emergency room after they had taken cough and cold medicines. In the 14 months after, that number dropped to approximately 1,250 kids. For older kids, the number of emergency room visits didn't change significantly.
"What this study shows is exactly what you expect," Lavonas said. "People are no longer buying these medications for use by small children, and as a result small children are not getting into them by accident."
Kids who show up in the emergency room for problems related to these medications often take too much when a parent isn't looking, but sometimes it's the parents themselves that give the kid too much by mistake, Budnitz said. The good news is, there are ways for the companies that make the medications and for parents to cut down on both of those problems.
Cough and cold medicines made for older kids and for adults need to be designed so that it's much harder for kids to get into them and accidentally take a dangerous amount, Lavonas said. In addition, instructions on the medicine bottles should be more obvious about the appropriate dose for kids who are old enough to take them, he added.
For parents, Budnitz said, the important thing is to not give cough and cold medications to kids younger than 4, and to make sure that all of the family's medicines are kept "up and away and out of sight."
When kids are sick, parents can give appropriate doses of Tylenol and make sure their kid is comfortable and drinking plenty of fluids, Rieder said.
If your kid does get into a cough and cold medication bottle and take too much, you shouldn't necessarily run to the nearest emergency room, Lavonas said.
"If your child is not critically ill right in front of you, your very first call should be to your local poison control center," he said.
Most of the kids in this study probably did not need to go to the emergency room, he said - and a poison control center can tell parents what to look for and when going to the hospital is necessary, he said.
Doctors are hopeful that going forward fewer and fewer children might be showing up at the emergency room after taking too much cough and cold medication - provided that both companies and parents do their part.
The withdrawal "has been successful in dramatically reducing events in young children," Lavonas said. "Perfect success would be no child ever harmed."
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/gas77m Pediatrics, online November 22, 2010.
Want Tighter Abs? Reach for the Toes
This toe reach is exactly what you need to slough off belly fat and firm up ab muscles. It will also increase core muscle strength so that you can bend, reach and lift with greater dexterity. People with back problems should take caution when performing this move. Are you ready? Let’s begin!
Step 1: Lie on your back. Cross your legs, flex your feet, and raise your legs to a 90-degree angle. Extend your arms and keep your chin up.
Step 2: Breathe slowly as you crunch up, reaching toward your toes through a count of 10 seconds.
Step 3: Hold for 2 seconds at the maximum tension point, then lower yourself back to the starting point through a count of 10 seconds. (Note: Try to keep your upper back from touching the ground.)
Step 4: Repeat three times without resting.
Your coach,
Jorge Cruise
Step 1: Lie on your back. Cross your legs, flex your feet, and raise your legs to a 90-degree angle. Extend your arms and keep your chin up.
Step 2: Breathe slowly as you crunch up, reaching toward your toes through a count of 10 seconds.
Step 3: Hold for 2 seconds at the maximum tension point, then lower yourself back to the starting point through a count of 10 seconds. (Note: Try to keep your upper back from touching the ground.)
Step 4: Repeat three times without resting.
Your coach,
Jorge Cruise
The Best Salad Dressings for Your Waistline
You probably think you're making the healthiest choice when you top your salad with fat-free dressing. But are you? Surprisingly, the answer is no. Your body can only absorb the beta-carotene from your veggies, along with most of the lycopene and heart-healthy alpha-carotene, if you have a little good fat along with your greens.
Instead, either try a reduced-fat dressing (watch the sugar—some of these dressings can be high in it) or, better yet, make your own canola oil and vinegar dressing. Canola oil contains healthy omega-3s, and adding spices like oregano or marjoram can increase your antioxidant absorption even more.
Instead, either try a reduced-fat dressing (watch the sugar—some of these dressings can be high in it) or, better yet, make your own canola oil and vinegar dressing. Canola oil contains healthy omega-3s, and adding spices like oregano or marjoram can increase your antioxidant absorption even more.
Diet Key to Diabetes Control
Question: I have Type 2 diabetes and my A1C reading has crept up to 7.3 (normal is 5.8). I am 65 and exercise moderately, but obviously I’m not watching my diet closely enough. I take oral diabetic medications glyburide and metformin. Do you believe that in the near future I will have to take insulin injections?
Dr. Brownstein’s Answer:
You answered your own question! A poor diet is the No. 1 cause of Type 2 diabetes. Luckily for you, a hemoglobin AIC of 7.3 is not that bad — a little effort on your part can reverse this condition.
It is important to eliminate refined sugar, flour, salt, and oil from your diet. Also, reduce or eliminate all refined carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, and cereal. Instead, eat a diet consisting of organic products, including fruits, vegetables, and meats.
Detoxifying your liver and taking the right supplements can further help. I have developed a supplement — GLUC-Control — which has been very helpful at improving insulin resistance and alleviating Type 2 diabetes. (GLUC-Control can be found at www.centerforholisticmedicine.com.)
Dr. Brownstein’s Answer:
You answered your own question! A poor diet is the No. 1 cause of Type 2 diabetes. Luckily for you, a hemoglobin AIC of 7.3 is not that bad — a little effort on your part can reverse this condition.
It is important to eliminate refined sugar, flour, salt, and oil from your diet. Also, reduce or eliminate all refined carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, and cereal. Instead, eat a diet consisting of organic products, including fruits, vegetables, and meats.
Detoxifying your liver and taking the right supplements can further help. I have developed a supplement — GLUC-Control — which has been very helpful at improving insulin resistance and alleviating Type 2 diabetes. (GLUC-Control can be found at www.centerforholisticmedicine.com.)
Insurer: More Than Half of Americans to Face Diabetes by 2020
More than half of Americans will have diabetes or be prediabetic by 2020 at a cost to the U.S. healthcare system of $3.35 trillion if current trends go on unabated, according to analysis of a new report released on Tuesday by health insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc.
Diabetes and prediabetes will account for an estimated 10 percent of total healthcare spending by the end of the decade at an annual cost of almost $500 billion — up from an estimated $194 billion this year, according to the report titled "The United States of Diabetes: Challenges and Opportunities in the Decade Ahead," which focuses on obesity-related Type 2 diabetes.
The average annual healthcare costs in 2009 for a person with known diabetes were about $11,700 compared with about $4,400 for the non-diabetic public, according to new data in the report drawn from 10 million UnitedHealthcare members.
The average annual cost nearly doubles to $20,700 for a person with complications related to diabetes, the report said. Complications related to diabetes can include heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, blindness, and circulatory problems that can lead to wounds that will not heal and limb amputations.
Diabetes, which is reaching epidemic proportions and is one of the fastest-growing diseases in the United States, currently affects about 26 million Americans.
Another 67 million Americans are estimated to have prediabetes, which may not have any obvious symptoms. More than 60 million Americans are unaware that they have the condition, according to UnitedHealth.
People with prediabetes have higher than normal blood sugar levels, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Prediabetics often have other risk factors, such as being overweight, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
The 52-page UnitedHealth report also focuses on the growing obesity epidemic as that condition is a leading cause of diabetes.
The authors of the report contend the skyrocketing cost forecasts are not inevitable, however, if the crisis is tackled aggressively, including early intervention to prevent prediabetes from becoming diabetes.
Because diabetes follows a progressive course, often starting with obesity and then moving to prediabetes, there are multiple opportunities to intervene early on and prevent this devastating disease before it's too late," Deneen Vojta, senior vice president of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, said in a statement.
"What is now needed is concerted, national, multi-stakeholder action," Simon Stevens, chairman of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, said in a statement.
"Making a major impact on the prediabetes and diabetes epidemic will require health plans to engage consumers in new ways, while working to scale nationally some of the most promising preventive care models." Stevens added.
If solutions for tackling the epidemic offered in the report were adopted broadly and scaled nationally, it could lead to cost savings of up to $250 billion over the next 10 years, according to the UnitedHealth analysis.
Diabetes and prediabetes will account for an estimated 10 percent of total healthcare spending by the end of the decade at an annual cost of almost $500 billion — up from an estimated $194 billion this year, according to the report titled "The United States of Diabetes: Challenges and Opportunities in the Decade Ahead," which focuses on obesity-related Type 2 diabetes.
The average annual healthcare costs in 2009 for a person with known diabetes were about $11,700 compared with about $4,400 for the non-diabetic public, according to new data in the report drawn from 10 million UnitedHealthcare members.
The average annual cost nearly doubles to $20,700 for a person with complications related to diabetes, the report said. Complications related to diabetes can include heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, blindness, and circulatory problems that can lead to wounds that will not heal and limb amputations.
Diabetes, which is reaching epidemic proportions and is one of the fastest-growing diseases in the United States, currently affects about 26 million Americans.
Another 67 million Americans are estimated to have prediabetes, which may not have any obvious symptoms. More than 60 million Americans are unaware that they have the condition, according to UnitedHealth.
People with prediabetes have higher than normal blood sugar levels, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Prediabetics often have other risk factors, such as being overweight, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
The 52-page UnitedHealth report also focuses on the growing obesity epidemic as that condition is a leading cause of diabetes.
The authors of the report contend the skyrocketing cost forecasts are not inevitable, however, if the crisis is tackled aggressively, including early intervention to prevent prediabetes from becoming diabetes.
Because diabetes follows a progressive course, often starting with obesity and then moving to prediabetes, there are multiple opportunities to intervene early on and prevent this devastating disease before it's too late," Deneen Vojta, senior vice president of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, said in a statement.
"What is now needed is concerted, national, multi-stakeholder action," Simon Stevens, chairman of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, said in a statement.
"Making a major impact on the prediabetes and diabetes epidemic will require health plans to engage consumers in new ways, while working to scale nationally some of the most promising preventive care models." Stevens added.
If solutions for tackling the epidemic offered in the report were adopted broadly and scaled nationally, it could lead to cost savings of up to $250 billion over the next 10 years, according to the UnitedHealth analysis.
Kidney Exchange to Cut Transplant Wait
Too often, would-be kidney donors are wasted because the friend or loved one they want to help isn't a match. Now a new national database promises to help find matches for those frustrated pairs so they can be part of so-called kidney exchanges and cut the wait for a transplant.
If the long-awaited pilot project by the United Network for Organ Sharing ans out, specialists predict it eventually could result in an extra 2,000 to 3,000 transplants a year through "kidney paired donation," where someone donates a kidney on a patient's behalf so they can receive a compatible organ from someone else in return.
"The more people involved, the more people match," explains Dr. Dorry Segev at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, which pioneered kidney swaps and is one of four transplant coordinating centers helping to run the UNOS project.
Kidney paired donation is increasing but still rare — with more than 760 performed in the last three years — and patients today often must track down participating centers on their own and travel hundreds of miles for surgery.
"I do have friends that are on dialysis that can't afford to come this far to receive a transplant," says Heather Hall, 31, of Denham Springs, La., who was one of 16 patients to receive a new kidney during an unusually large exchange last week at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington.
Born with bad kidneys and needing her third transplant, she read about Georgetown's program after doctors in Louisiana said she'd become too hard to match. Her aunt donated on her behalf.
The UNOS project, which began last month, is part of a broader effort to increase kidney paired donation, considered one of the best bets at boosting live-donor transplants — the optimal kind. Some transplant centers already have formed regional alliances to mix and match larger numbers of patients and their would-be donors. Even some small hospitals are making a name for themselves by amassing lists of potential swappers.
"We're trying to tell folks, 'Don't take no for an answer,'" says transplant surgeon Dr. Adam Bingaman of San Antonio's Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital, who led another 16-way kidney exchange this month.
Of the more than 87,000 people on the yearslong national waiting list for a kidney, at least 6,000 instead could qualify for a kidney swap if only they knew about that option, Bingaman recently wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Fewer than 17,000 kidney transplants are performed in the United States each year, and just over a third are from living donors, relatives, or friends who happen to be biologically compatible.
Without their own donor, patients await a cadaver kidney — and nearly one in three patients may never get one because their immune system has become abnormally primed to attack a new organ, says Georgetown kidney transplant director Dr. Keith Melancon. Black patients are most at risk, but anyone can become "sensitized" from pregnancy, blood transfusions, dialysis or, like Louisiana's Hall, a previous transplant.
Kidney paired donation evolved as an alternative for people with incompatible donors, especially those super hard-to-match.
The UNOS project aims to spur more matches. Any of the 77 transplant centers participating so far merely submits key matching information about a patient and his or her would-be donor to UNOS' database, which periodically alerts centers to potential matches with people from other parts of the country.
The first attempt late last month — when the database contained just 43 kidney patients and 45 donors — turned up seven potentially matching pairs, says Dr. Kenneth Andreoni of Ohio State University, UNOS' kidney committee chairman. The rest is up to the home hospitals of the patients and donors, who ship each other blood samples necessary for final compatibility testing and then set up the operations.
Transplant specialists are divided on whether the UNOS approach will prove best, or whether regional alliances or developing "centers of excellence" for kidney swaps might be more effective. In San Antonio, Bingaman notes that a third of his hospital's 180 live-donor kidney transplants this year were part of exchanges. That's a big increase from 71 live-donor transplants in 2007, before he began swaps.
That debate aside, people can stay on their home hospital's transplant list and be part of the pilot national database, potentially increasing their chances of finding of a match, says Hopkins' Segev.
And regardless of how it's done, increasing kidney swaps potentially helps everyone — by removing people from the national waiting list.
"You added new kidneys to the system," says Georgetown's Melancon, whose hospital is transplanting about 30 percent of the people on its waiting list, nearly double the rate before he began exchanges. He's now starting to comb old records to find patients whose incompatible donors were turned away years ago, to see if their donor's willing to give it another try.
If the long-awaited pilot project by the United Network for Organ Sharing ans out, specialists predict it eventually could result in an extra 2,000 to 3,000 transplants a year through "kidney paired donation," where someone donates a kidney on a patient's behalf so they can receive a compatible organ from someone else in return.
"The more people involved, the more people match," explains Dr. Dorry Segev at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, which pioneered kidney swaps and is one of four transplant coordinating centers helping to run the UNOS project.
Kidney paired donation is increasing but still rare — with more than 760 performed in the last three years — and patients today often must track down participating centers on their own and travel hundreds of miles for surgery.
"I do have friends that are on dialysis that can't afford to come this far to receive a transplant," says Heather Hall, 31, of Denham Springs, La., who was one of 16 patients to receive a new kidney during an unusually large exchange last week at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington.
Born with bad kidneys and needing her third transplant, she read about Georgetown's program after doctors in Louisiana said she'd become too hard to match. Her aunt donated on her behalf.
The UNOS project, which began last month, is part of a broader effort to increase kidney paired donation, considered one of the best bets at boosting live-donor transplants — the optimal kind. Some transplant centers already have formed regional alliances to mix and match larger numbers of patients and their would-be donors. Even some small hospitals are making a name for themselves by amassing lists of potential swappers.
"We're trying to tell folks, 'Don't take no for an answer,'" says transplant surgeon Dr. Adam Bingaman of San Antonio's Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital, who led another 16-way kidney exchange this month.
Of the more than 87,000 people on the yearslong national waiting list for a kidney, at least 6,000 instead could qualify for a kidney swap if only they knew about that option, Bingaman recently wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Fewer than 17,000 kidney transplants are performed in the United States each year, and just over a third are from living donors, relatives, or friends who happen to be biologically compatible.
Without their own donor, patients await a cadaver kidney — and nearly one in three patients may never get one because their immune system has become abnormally primed to attack a new organ, says Georgetown kidney transplant director Dr. Keith Melancon. Black patients are most at risk, but anyone can become "sensitized" from pregnancy, blood transfusions, dialysis or, like Louisiana's Hall, a previous transplant.
Kidney paired donation evolved as an alternative for people with incompatible donors, especially those super hard-to-match.
The UNOS project aims to spur more matches. Any of the 77 transplant centers participating so far merely submits key matching information about a patient and his or her would-be donor to UNOS' database, which periodically alerts centers to potential matches with people from other parts of the country.
The first attempt late last month — when the database contained just 43 kidney patients and 45 donors — turned up seven potentially matching pairs, says Dr. Kenneth Andreoni of Ohio State University, UNOS' kidney committee chairman. The rest is up to the home hospitals of the patients and donors, who ship each other blood samples necessary for final compatibility testing and then set up the operations.
Transplant specialists are divided on whether the UNOS approach will prove best, or whether regional alliances or developing "centers of excellence" for kidney swaps might be more effective. In San Antonio, Bingaman notes that a third of his hospital's 180 live-donor kidney transplants this year were part of exchanges. That's a big increase from 71 live-donor transplants in 2007, before he began swaps.
That debate aside, people can stay on their home hospital's transplant list and be part of the pilot national database, potentially increasing their chances of finding of a match, says Hopkins' Segev.
And regardless of how it's done, increasing kidney swaps potentially helps everyone — by removing people from the national waiting list.
"You added new kidneys to the system," says Georgetown's Melancon, whose hospital is transplanting about 30 percent of the people on its waiting list, nearly double the rate before he began exchanges. He's now starting to comb old records to find patients whose incompatible donors were turned away years ago, to see if their donor's willing to give it another try.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: It is the time for home.
FDA Pulls Popular Painkiller
The company that makes the highly popular narcotic painkiller Darvon has pulled the drug from the market because it can cause fatal heart rhythms, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday.
The FDA said it asked Kentucky-based Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc. to stop selling Darvon and Darvocet after new data confirmed fears that the active ingredient, propoxyphene, could cause serious or even fatal heart rhythm abnormalities.
The decision means patients will have even fewer safe options to manage pain, the FDA said. The agency says 10 million patients took Darvon or a generic version in 2009 and 18 million prescriptions were dispensed.
"These new heart data significantly alter propoxyphene's risk-benefit profile. The drug's effectiveness in reducing pain is no longer enough to outweigh the drug's serious potential heart risks," Dr. John Jenkins of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said in a statement.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the Public Citizen's Health Research Group said it was too little, too late, noting that Britain banned the drug six years ago.
"Due to FDA negligence, at least 1,000 to 2,000 or more people in the United States have died from using propoxyphene since the time the U.K. ban was announced," Wolfe said in a statement.
An FDA advisory committee split on whether to ban the drug in 2009. The European Medicines Agency pulled it from the market in June 2009.
"The FDA's pitiful excuse that it needed to order a human study to find that 'the drug puts patients at risk of potentially serious or even fatal heart rhythm abnormalities' before deciding whether to ban propoxyphene only emphasizes how out-of-step the agency is with the rest of the world," Wolfe said.
Few Alternatives
But the FDA noted that many people take the drug and that there are few choices equivalent to the mild opioid. These include over-the-counter pain relievers such as aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, codeine, oxycodone, or hydrocodone.
Aspirin and ibuprofen can cause fatal bleeding and codeine can cause severe constipation.
The FDA said it was difficult to show that deaths associated with Darvon use were not, in fact, overdoses. But a comparison with similar drugs showed propoxyphene was more dangerous.
"Over a five-year period, the number of drug-related deaths was approximately 16 deaths per 100,000 prescriptions for propoxyphene, 10 deaths per 100,000 prescriptions for tramadol, and 8 deaths per 100,000 prescriptions for hydrocodone," the FDA said in a statement.
The FDA said it was advising healthcare professionals to stop prescribing propoxyphene and said patients taking it should speak to a doctor about switching to another drug as soon as possible.
"Since 1978, the FDA has received two requests to remove propoxyphene from the market. Until now, the FDA had concluded that the benefits of propoxyphene for pain relief at recommended doses outweighed the safety risks," the FDA said.
The FDA's Dr. Gerald Dal Pan said Darvon does not cause permanent damage to the heart. "Once patients stop taking propoxyphene, the risk will go away," he said.
The FDA said it asked Kentucky-based Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc. to stop selling Darvon and Darvocet after new data confirmed fears that the active ingredient, propoxyphene, could cause serious or even fatal heart rhythm abnormalities.
The decision means patients will have even fewer safe options to manage pain, the FDA said. The agency says 10 million patients took Darvon or a generic version in 2009 and 18 million prescriptions were dispensed.
"These new heart data significantly alter propoxyphene's risk-benefit profile. The drug's effectiveness in reducing pain is no longer enough to outweigh the drug's serious potential heart risks," Dr. John Jenkins of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said in a statement.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the Public Citizen's Health Research Group said it was too little, too late, noting that Britain banned the drug six years ago.
"Due to FDA negligence, at least 1,000 to 2,000 or more people in the United States have died from using propoxyphene since the time the U.K. ban was announced," Wolfe said in a statement.
An FDA advisory committee split on whether to ban the drug in 2009. The European Medicines Agency pulled it from the market in June 2009.
"The FDA's pitiful excuse that it needed to order a human study to find that 'the drug puts patients at risk of potentially serious or even fatal heart rhythm abnormalities' before deciding whether to ban propoxyphene only emphasizes how out-of-step the agency is with the rest of the world," Wolfe said.
Few Alternatives
But the FDA noted that many people take the drug and that there are few choices equivalent to the mild opioid. These include over-the-counter pain relievers such as aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, codeine, oxycodone, or hydrocodone.
Aspirin and ibuprofen can cause fatal bleeding and codeine can cause severe constipation.
The FDA said it was difficult to show that deaths associated with Darvon use were not, in fact, overdoses. But a comparison with similar drugs showed propoxyphene was more dangerous.
"Over a five-year period, the number of drug-related deaths was approximately 16 deaths per 100,000 prescriptions for propoxyphene, 10 deaths per 100,000 prescriptions for tramadol, and 8 deaths per 100,000 prescriptions for hydrocodone," the FDA said in a statement.
The FDA said it was advising healthcare professionals to stop prescribing propoxyphene and said patients taking it should speak to a doctor about switching to another drug as soon as possible.
"Since 1978, the FDA has received two requests to remove propoxyphene from the market. Until now, the FDA had concluded that the benefits of propoxyphene for pain relief at recommended doses outweighed the safety risks," the FDA said.
The FDA's Dr. Gerald Dal Pan said Darvon does not cause permanent damage to the heart. "Once patients stop taking propoxyphene, the risk will go away," he said.
Errors Kill 15,000 Elderly Each Month
Mistakes and unavoidable problems kill an estimated 15,000 elderly U.S. patients every month in hospitals, U.S. government investigators reported on Tuesday.
More than 13 percent of patients covered by Medicare, the government health insurance for the elderly, or about 134,000 people monthly have some sort of so-called adverse event each month. These include mistakes such as surgical errors or sometimes unavoidable problems such as an infection spread in the hospital, or patients having their blood sugar fall to unusually low levels.
The new numbers, which total about 180,000 deaths a year, were presented in a report by the Office of Inspector General at the Health and Human Services Department. They support findings of a landmark Institute of Medicine report in 2000 that said up to 98,000 Americans died every year because of medical errors.
"An estimated 13.5 percent of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries experienced adverse events during their hospital stays," the OIG said in the report.
It said 44 percent of the problems were avoidable.
The OIG team worked by examining a nationally representative random sample of 780 Medicare beneficiaries discharged from a hospital in October 2008.
"Hospital care associated with adverse and temporary harm events cost Medicare an estimated $324 million in October 2008," the report concludes.
President Barack Obama has said his healthcare reform legislation will help reduce errors with measures such as wider use of electronic medical records. Opponents, however, believe that electronic medical records put patient privacy at risk.
Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine, said patients needed ways of learning which hospitals make the most errors.
"This report shows that hospital patients are being harmed by medical errors at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, most Americans have no way of knowing whether their hospital is doing a good job preventing medical errors," the group's Lisa McGiffert said in a statement.
The OIG report recommends that two HHS agencies — the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services — should do more to encourage reporting of adverse events, and broaden the definition so that trends can be identified.
Both agencies said they would.
Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, said hospitals would work to improve.
"Hospitals are already engaged in important projects designed to improve patient care in many of the areas mentioned in the report. We are committed to taking additional needed steps to improve patient care," Umbdenstock said in a statement.
More than 13 percent of patients covered by Medicare, the government health insurance for the elderly, or about 134,000 people monthly have some sort of so-called adverse event each month. These include mistakes such as surgical errors or sometimes unavoidable problems such as an infection spread in the hospital, or patients having their blood sugar fall to unusually low levels.
The new numbers, which total about 180,000 deaths a year, were presented in a report by the Office of Inspector General at the Health and Human Services Department. They support findings of a landmark Institute of Medicine report in 2000 that said up to 98,000 Americans died every year because of medical errors.
"An estimated 13.5 percent of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries experienced adverse events during their hospital stays," the OIG said in the report.
It said 44 percent of the problems were avoidable.
The OIG team worked by examining a nationally representative random sample of 780 Medicare beneficiaries discharged from a hospital in October 2008.
"Hospital care associated with adverse and temporary harm events cost Medicare an estimated $324 million in October 2008," the report concludes.
President Barack Obama has said his healthcare reform legislation will help reduce errors with measures such as wider use of electronic medical records. Opponents, however, believe that electronic medical records put patient privacy at risk.
Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine, said patients needed ways of learning which hospitals make the most errors.
"This report shows that hospital patients are being harmed by medical errors at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, most Americans have no way of knowing whether their hospital is doing a good job preventing medical errors," the group's Lisa McGiffert said in a statement.
The OIG report recommends that two HHS agencies — the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services — should do more to encourage reporting of adverse events, and broaden the definition so that trends can be identified.
Both agencies said they would.
Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, said hospitals would work to improve.
"Hospitals are already engaged in important projects designed to improve patient care in many of the areas mentioned in the report. We are committed to taking additional needed steps to improve patient care," Umbdenstock said in a statement.
8 Ways Caregivers Can Care for Themselves
More than 65 million Americans — 29 percent of the U.S. population — provide care to a loved one. While caregiving has its rewards, the emotional and physical strain of caring for someone with a chronic or terminal illness can take its toll, and those experiencing the most stress may be compromising their own health.
If you’re a caregiver, how do you know whether you’re in need of tender loving care yourself? What can you do to avoid burning out? Here are eight ways to take care of yourself while offering your best self to your loved one.
1. Watch for stress, depression
Do you feel tired most of the time, or overwhelmed and irritable? Are you gaining or losing weight, oversleeping, sleeping too little, or losing interest in activities you typically enjoy? These could be signs of depression and severe stress, and when they arise, mental health experts advise seeking professional help.
2. Let things go
Forget about trying to be the “perfect” caregiver, advises MayoClinic.com. It’s OK if the dust bunnies gather or you’re not making gourmet meals. Setting too high expectations of yourself only contributes to the stress you’re already likely feeling. Don’t make things harder on yourself by trying to do everything. When people offer assistance, respond with specific tasks they can do, such as shopping for groceries, running errands, or doing some household chores.
3. Educate yourself
Learn as much as you can about your loved one’s condition and how to be a caregiver, advises HelpGuide.org. You’re likely to be more effective and feel more positive about your efforts. Gail Sheehy, author of “Passages of Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence,” suggests having two or three consults with different medical providers and picking one to be a sort of “medical quarterback” to help you wade through care options and assemble a team.
4. Join a support group
Being around people who understand what you are going through and who have information that can help you in your caregiver role can be a big asset. Support groups also are a way to be social and to offer and accept encouragement. In addition to groups that may meet in your community, you also might find virtual support groups online from all over the world, allowing you to find help without even leaving the house. Other useful information is also online. Good places to start are: eCareDiary.com and TheFamilyCaregiver.org.
5. Try respite care
Short-term nursing homes, adult-care centers, day hospitals, and in-home respite programs all can help give you a break, even if it’s just for a few hours a day. If your loved one is a veteran, government benefits such as home-health coverage and financial support might be available, notes HelpGuide.org.
6. Find balance
Two-thirds of today’s caregivers also work outside the home, according to MayoClinic.com. How do you strike a balance between responsibilities? Share your work loads, ask human resources about assistance programs, and keep communication with your supervisor open, the website advises. Also, ask your loved one’s physician to send your employer a letter explaining the situation.
7. Take care of yourself
Try to eat well-balanced meals and exercise to maintain your own good health. Stress-management exercises like yoga and tai chi are particularly good, says CareGiverStress.com. Doing something you enjoy — biking, swimming, dancing — for 20 minutes at least three times a week is especially important. When you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, take a meditation break by walking away to a quiet space and breathing deeply for a few minutes.
8. Accept your feelings
Caregiving unleashes many feelings, including guilt, anger, fear, resentment, and grief, explains HelpGuide.org. It’s important to allow yourself these feelings, while not compromising the well-being of your loved one. Guilt is an especially common feeling among caregivers. Manage it by first identifying it and being compassionate with yourself, advises Dr. Vicki Rackner, at CareGiver.org. “Cloudy moods, like cloudy days, come and go,” she writes. “There’s no one way a caregiver should feel. When you give yourself permission to have any feeling, and recognize that your feelings don’t control your actions, your guilt will subside.”
If you’re a caregiver, how do you know whether you’re in need of tender loving care yourself? What can you do to avoid burning out? Here are eight ways to take care of yourself while offering your best self to your loved one.
1. Watch for stress, depression
Do you feel tired most of the time, or overwhelmed and irritable? Are you gaining or losing weight, oversleeping, sleeping too little, or losing interest in activities you typically enjoy? These could be signs of depression and severe stress, and when they arise, mental health experts advise seeking professional help.
2. Let things go
Forget about trying to be the “perfect” caregiver, advises MayoClinic.com. It’s OK if the dust bunnies gather or you’re not making gourmet meals. Setting too high expectations of yourself only contributes to the stress you’re already likely feeling. Don’t make things harder on yourself by trying to do everything. When people offer assistance, respond with specific tasks they can do, such as shopping for groceries, running errands, or doing some household chores.
3. Educate yourself
Learn as much as you can about your loved one’s condition and how to be a caregiver, advises HelpGuide.org. You’re likely to be more effective and feel more positive about your efforts. Gail Sheehy, author of “Passages of Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence,” suggests having two or three consults with different medical providers and picking one to be a sort of “medical quarterback” to help you wade through care options and assemble a team.
4. Join a support group
Being around people who understand what you are going through and who have information that can help you in your caregiver role can be a big asset. Support groups also are a way to be social and to offer and accept encouragement. In addition to groups that may meet in your community, you also might find virtual support groups online from all over the world, allowing you to find help without even leaving the house. Other useful information is also online. Good places to start are: eCareDiary.com and TheFamilyCaregiver.org.
5. Try respite care
Short-term nursing homes, adult-care centers, day hospitals, and in-home respite programs all can help give you a break, even if it’s just for a few hours a day. If your loved one is a veteran, government benefits such as home-health coverage and financial support might be available, notes HelpGuide.org.
6. Find balance
Two-thirds of today’s caregivers also work outside the home, according to MayoClinic.com. How do you strike a balance between responsibilities? Share your work loads, ask human resources about assistance programs, and keep communication with your supervisor open, the website advises. Also, ask your loved one’s physician to send your employer a letter explaining the situation.
7. Take care of yourself
Try to eat well-balanced meals and exercise to maintain your own good health. Stress-management exercises like yoga and tai chi are particularly good, says CareGiverStress.com. Doing something you enjoy — biking, swimming, dancing — for 20 minutes at least three times a week is especially important. When you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, take a meditation break by walking away to a quiet space and breathing deeply for a few minutes.
8. Accept your feelings
Caregiving unleashes many feelings, including guilt, anger, fear, resentment, and grief, explains HelpGuide.org. It’s important to allow yourself these feelings, while not compromising the well-being of your loved one. Guilt is an especially common feeling among caregivers. Manage it by first identifying it and being compassionate with yourself, advises Dr. Vicki Rackner, at CareGiver.org. “Cloudy moods, like cloudy days, come and go,” she writes. “There’s no one way a caregiver should feel. When you give yourself permission to have any feeling, and recognize that your feelings don’t control your actions, your guilt will subside.”
Do Stop-Smoking Products Really Work?
Electronic cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, inhalers – do they really help you quit? And are they safe? In recognition of Lung Cancer Awareness Month, we examine the top aids to help you kick the habit…
As any smoker knows, nicotine is a powerful drug. But some alternatives are also dangerous – leaving you breathing in chemicals found in antifreeze or smoking more rather than less.
“The U.S. Surgeon General’s report has consistently referred to it as [equally addictive as] heroin and cocaine,” says Thomas Glynn, Ph.D., director of Cancer Science and Trends for the American Cancer Society in Washington, D.C.
It’s not only the nicotine you crave. Each pack is 400 puffs, and “that repetitive behavior, unique to smoking, creates new pathways in the brain, making the activity itself habit-forming,” says Maher A. Karam-Hage, M.D., associate medical director of the Tobacco Treatment Program at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Most people take 4-6 attempts to quit, and some give it as many as 10 or more tries before they’re successful.
To help, there are prescription and over-the-counter aids available. But some come with their own health risks.
Here, we break down the top cigarette alternatives and replacement products so you can kick the habit quickly and safely.
The Latest Smoking Alternatives
Smokeless or chemical-free cigarettes regularly make the news as quick fixes for cigarettes’ main drawbacks, but they haven’t been tested, regulated or FDA-approved.
Here’s what you need to know about the three main options:
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes): Made to look like a cigarette or pen, an e-cigarette delivers nicotine through a battery-powered heating element that converts liquid from a replaceable cartridge into an inhalable vapor.
Although the device replicates the ritual, actions and flavor of lighting up, there’s no actual smoke. Perfect solution, right?
Wrong. The experts we spoke to said that most people use devices with smokeless tobacco to supplement smoking – not stop it – so they actually increase their nicotine intake.
This may be partly because e-cigarettes deliver an unreliable (or irregular) amount of nicotine, so smokers feel unsatisfied. Smokers also use them in places where smoking is banned, such as in a restaurant or office.
Initial testing of e-cigarettes has also raised concerns. Evidence indicates that “quality control processes used to manufacture these products are substandard or nonexistent,” according to an FDA statement.
As a result, e-cigarettes don’t deliver a consistent amount of nicotine, so smokers don’t know what they’re getting from one brand – or even one cartridge – to the next.
Nicotine isn’t the only harmful ingredient. According to the American Journal of Public Health, preliminary testing of two products shows that the vapor in electronic cigarettes contained at least one chemical, diethylene glycol (an antifreeze ingredient), which has a “history of mass poisonings and death when inadvertently substituted for propylene glycol in consumer products.”
In other words, because of the lack of regulation, you have no idea what else you’re inhaling.
Smokeless tobacco: Because you don't inhale, you may think these tea-bag-like pouches held under the tongue are a "safe" habit. In fact, you're transferring the cancer risk from your lungs to other body parts, such as the mouth, tongue, throat and esophagus.
This is particularly dangerous, because “oral cancers are very aggressive,” says Jamie Ostroff, Ph.D., director of the Tobacco Cessation Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Plus, researchers aren’t sure why, but “epidemiological data shows a clear increase in pancreatic cancer with smokeless tobacco use,” Glynn says.
Smokers also don’t find smokeless tobacco as satisfying as lighting up. Inhaling is the quickest way to absorb a drug into the lungs, so these pouches don’t deliver the same buzz, says Doug Jorenby, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
As a result, most people who use smokeless tobacco either continue, or start, to smoke cigarettes. In fact, 87% of people use it to supplement cigarette smoking, according to a 2010 study of 114 smokers, published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Herbal cigarettes: Don’t let the name fool you. Many cigarettes marketed as “herbal” contain tobacco.
Clove cigarettes, called Kreteks, are made from clove-scented tobacco. Others, called Bidis, are made from rolling tobacco in a dried leaf from the tendu tree, native to India.
Their dangers are serious: Clove cigarettes have been associated with an increased risk of lung cancer and other lung diseases, according to a report by the National Cancer Institute. Bidis have been linked to heart attacks, as well as cancers of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus and lung.
Another key problem with all these smoking alternatives is that they make it harder to break your habit, Ostroff says.
“They make smoking even more a part of your life and won’t help you address the psychological dependence.”
To decrease your need for nicotine, you’ll need a replacement product.
Nicotine-Replacement Products
Nicotine withdrawal sends many people back to cigarettes. It can cause difficulty concentrating, as well as anxiety, irritability and insomnia.
Replacement products ease those symptoms, and five types – nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, inhalers and nasal sprays – are FDA-approved.
All deliver controlled amounts of nicotine safely and come with instructions for tapering off use. These products double the success rate for people trying to quit, Glynn says. When combined with counseling, it triples.
Patches: These deliver a steady, continuous dose of nicotine over 24 hours so you “don’t wake up with a horrible craving,” Glynn says.
Patches can be irritating to skin, however, so they aren’t a good choice for people with sensitive skin or an allergy to adhesive tape.
Gum and lozenges: Unwrapping and chewing these replacements, or letting them dissolve slowly in the mouth, “helps meet oral and tactile needs,” Glynn says.
But the gum can stick to dental work and isn’t recommended for people with temperomandibular joint disease (TMJ).
Inhalers: Available only by prescription, these small plastic mouthpieces look like cigarette holders and mimic the action of smoking with no smoke (unlike a cigarette) or vapor (unlike an e-cigarette).
Some people keep the mouthpiece even after they’ve stopped smoking, Ostroff says, because just puffing on the empty mouthpiece removes their urge to smoke.
Inhalers can irritate the mouth and throat, however, and aren’t recommended for people with asthma.
Nasal sprays: Also available only by prescription, sprays offer the fastest nicotine absorption – in other words, the most satisfying buzz.
“They come closest of all treatments to mimicking what happens when someone inhales on a cigarette,” Ostroff says. But they can also cause nasal irritation and aren’t recommended for people with asthma or nasal or sinus problems.
There are some health risks to the replacement products. Because the nicotine delivery is more constant than with smoking cigarettes, some side effects – such as stomach upset – can worsen when you first start using them.
You can also have especially vivid dreams if you use some products, such as the patch, overnight. But the side effects taper off as your body adjusts.
If you’re pregnant, don’t use any of these stop-smoking aids. And check with your doctor if you have diabetes, heart disease, asthma, stomach ulcers, irregular heartbeat or have been prescribed a medication to help you quit smoking.
Prescription Medications
If you consult with your doctor about quitting smoking, he’s likely to prescribe one of the following:
Buproprion (Zyban): FDA-approved in 1997, this antidepressant reduces nicotine withdrawal symptoms by acting on the same neurochemical in the brain – dopamine – as nicotine does.
Buproprion can be used alongside nicotine-replacement products, increasing success in quitting, Jorenby says. But it’s not recommended for people with seizure disorders or heavy drinkers (because drinking lowers your seizure threshold).
Varenicline (Chantix): Generally, smokers take this for a week before their quit date, Jorenby says. Approved by the FDA in 2006, it can triple your chances of success by blocking nicotine cravings.
It’s the single most effective treatment we have, according to Jorenby. “With this medication, smoking just doesn’t do anything for the smoker,” he says. “Smokers told me it felt as if they were just sucking on air.”
Varenicline is metabolized by the kidneys. If you have had kidney disease, your doctor may want to adjust your dose.
Neither buproprion nor varenicline is recommended for pregnant women. If you’ve had symptoms of depression or bipolar disorder, you should be monitored closely by your doctor while taking these medications, because both have a rare risk of increasing negative thoughts.
More Ways to Quit
Regardless of the methods you use to stop smoking, you’ll have greater success if you don’t do it alone.
“Clinical data shows that people who use counseling combined with medical support, are more likely to quit,” Jorenby says.
This can be as simple as enlisting friends or family to talk to you when you have an urge to smoke, Glynn says.
You can also talk to one of the National Cancer Institute’s trained counselors. For help within your state, call 1-800-QUITNOW. Or, call this number from anywhere: 1-877-44U-QUIT.
Find more resources on the smokefree.gov website.
As any smoker knows, nicotine is a powerful drug. But some alternatives are also dangerous – leaving you breathing in chemicals found in antifreeze or smoking more rather than less.
“The U.S. Surgeon General’s report has consistently referred to it as [equally addictive as] heroin and cocaine,” says Thomas Glynn, Ph.D., director of Cancer Science and Trends for the American Cancer Society in Washington, D.C.
It’s not only the nicotine you crave. Each pack is 400 puffs, and “that repetitive behavior, unique to smoking, creates new pathways in the brain, making the activity itself habit-forming,” says Maher A. Karam-Hage, M.D., associate medical director of the Tobacco Treatment Program at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Most people take 4-6 attempts to quit, and some give it as many as 10 or more tries before they’re successful.
To help, there are prescription and over-the-counter aids available. But some come with their own health risks.
Here, we break down the top cigarette alternatives and replacement products so you can kick the habit quickly and safely.
The Latest Smoking Alternatives
Smokeless or chemical-free cigarettes regularly make the news as quick fixes for cigarettes’ main drawbacks, but they haven’t been tested, regulated or FDA-approved.
Here’s what you need to know about the three main options:
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes): Made to look like a cigarette or pen, an e-cigarette delivers nicotine through a battery-powered heating element that converts liquid from a replaceable cartridge into an inhalable vapor.
Although the device replicates the ritual, actions and flavor of lighting up, there’s no actual smoke. Perfect solution, right?
Wrong. The experts we spoke to said that most people use devices with smokeless tobacco to supplement smoking – not stop it – so they actually increase their nicotine intake.
This may be partly because e-cigarettes deliver an unreliable (or irregular) amount of nicotine, so smokers feel unsatisfied. Smokers also use them in places where smoking is banned, such as in a restaurant or office.
Initial testing of e-cigarettes has also raised concerns. Evidence indicates that “quality control processes used to manufacture these products are substandard or nonexistent,” according to an FDA statement.
As a result, e-cigarettes don’t deliver a consistent amount of nicotine, so smokers don’t know what they’re getting from one brand – or even one cartridge – to the next.
Nicotine isn’t the only harmful ingredient. According to the American Journal of Public Health, preliminary testing of two products shows that the vapor in electronic cigarettes contained at least one chemical, diethylene glycol (an antifreeze ingredient), which has a “history of mass poisonings and death when inadvertently substituted for propylene glycol in consumer products.”
In other words, because of the lack of regulation, you have no idea what else you’re inhaling.
Smokeless tobacco: Because you don't inhale, you may think these tea-bag-like pouches held under the tongue are a "safe" habit. In fact, you're transferring the cancer risk from your lungs to other body parts, such as the mouth, tongue, throat and esophagus.
This is particularly dangerous, because “oral cancers are very aggressive,” says Jamie Ostroff, Ph.D., director of the Tobacco Cessation Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Plus, researchers aren’t sure why, but “epidemiological data shows a clear increase in pancreatic cancer with smokeless tobacco use,” Glynn says.
Smokers also don’t find smokeless tobacco as satisfying as lighting up. Inhaling is the quickest way to absorb a drug into the lungs, so these pouches don’t deliver the same buzz, says Doug Jorenby, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
As a result, most people who use smokeless tobacco either continue, or start, to smoke cigarettes. In fact, 87% of people use it to supplement cigarette smoking, according to a 2010 study of 114 smokers, published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Herbal cigarettes: Don’t let the name fool you. Many cigarettes marketed as “herbal” contain tobacco.
Clove cigarettes, called Kreteks, are made from clove-scented tobacco. Others, called Bidis, are made from rolling tobacco in a dried leaf from the tendu tree, native to India.
Their dangers are serious: Clove cigarettes have been associated with an increased risk of lung cancer and other lung diseases, according to a report by the National Cancer Institute. Bidis have been linked to heart attacks, as well as cancers of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus and lung.
Another key problem with all these smoking alternatives is that they make it harder to break your habit, Ostroff says.
“They make smoking even more a part of your life and won’t help you address the psychological dependence.”
To decrease your need for nicotine, you’ll need a replacement product.
Nicotine-Replacement Products
Nicotine withdrawal sends many people back to cigarettes. It can cause difficulty concentrating, as well as anxiety, irritability and insomnia.
Replacement products ease those symptoms, and five types – nicotine patches, gum, lozenges, inhalers and nasal sprays – are FDA-approved.
All deliver controlled amounts of nicotine safely and come with instructions for tapering off use. These products double the success rate for people trying to quit, Glynn says. When combined with counseling, it triples.
Patches: These deliver a steady, continuous dose of nicotine over 24 hours so you “don’t wake up with a horrible craving,” Glynn says.
Patches can be irritating to skin, however, so they aren’t a good choice for people with sensitive skin or an allergy to adhesive tape.
Gum and lozenges: Unwrapping and chewing these replacements, or letting them dissolve slowly in the mouth, “helps meet oral and tactile needs,” Glynn says.
But the gum can stick to dental work and isn’t recommended for people with temperomandibular joint disease (TMJ).
Inhalers: Available only by prescription, these small plastic mouthpieces look like cigarette holders and mimic the action of smoking with no smoke (unlike a cigarette) or vapor (unlike an e-cigarette).
Some people keep the mouthpiece even after they’ve stopped smoking, Ostroff says, because just puffing on the empty mouthpiece removes their urge to smoke.
Inhalers can irritate the mouth and throat, however, and aren’t recommended for people with asthma.
Nasal sprays: Also available only by prescription, sprays offer the fastest nicotine absorption – in other words, the most satisfying buzz.
“They come closest of all treatments to mimicking what happens when someone inhales on a cigarette,” Ostroff says. But they can also cause nasal irritation and aren’t recommended for people with asthma or nasal or sinus problems.
There are some health risks to the replacement products. Because the nicotine delivery is more constant than with smoking cigarettes, some side effects – such as stomach upset – can worsen when you first start using them.
You can also have especially vivid dreams if you use some products, such as the patch, overnight. But the side effects taper off as your body adjusts.
If you’re pregnant, don’t use any of these stop-smoking aids. And check with your doctor if you have diabetes, heart disease, asthma, stomach ulcers, irregular heartbeat or have been prescribed a medication to help you quit smoking.
Prescription Medications
If you consult with your doctor about quitting smoking, he’s likely to prescribe one of the following:
Buproprion (Zyban): FDA-approved in 1997, this antidepressant reduces nicotine withdrawal symptoms by acting on the same neurochemical in the brain – dopamine – as nicotine does.
Buproprion can be used alongside nicotine-replacement products, increasing success in quitting, Jorenby says. But it’s not recommended for people with seizure disorders or heavy drinkers (because drinking lowers your seizure threshold).
Varenicline (Chantix): Generally, smokers take this for a week before their quit date, Jorenby says. Approved by the FDA in 2006, it can triple your chances of success by blocking nicotine cravings.
It’s the single most effective treatment we have, according to Jorenby. “With this medication, smoking just doesn’t do anything for the smoker,” he says. “Smokers told me it felt as if they were just sucking on air.”
Varenicline is metabolized by the kidneys. If you have had kidney disease, your doctor may want to adjust your dose.
Neither buproprion nor varenicline is recommended for pregnant women. If you’ve had symptoms of depression or bipolar disorder, you should be monitored closely by your doctor while taking these medications, because both have a rare risk of increasing negative thoughts.
More Ways to Quit
Regardless of the methods you use to stop smoking, you’ll have greater success if you don’t do it alone.
“Clinical data shows that people who use counseling combined with medical support, are more likely to quit,” Jorenby says.
This can be as simple as enlisting friends or family to talk to you when you have an urge to smoke, Glynn says.
You can also talk to one of the National Cancer Institute’s trained counselors. For help within your state, call 1-800-QUITNOW. Or, call this number from anywhere: 1-877-44U-QUIT.
Find more resources on the smokefree.gov website.
U.S. health insurers face sweeping spending rules
WASHINGTON(Reuters) - U.S. health insurers face a host of new spending rules under federal government regulations released on Monday that dictate how they allocate customers' monthly premium dollars toward medical care rather than other items such as profits or overhead.
Such spending limits, known as a medical loss ratio or MLR, were required under the healthcare overhaul passed in March and largely reflect earlier recommendations by a key group of state insurance regulators.
Uncertainty over the final rules has hung over the health insurance industry. Companies have said they were waiting for the rules to become concrete before giving specific financial outlooks for next year, while investors have been hesitant to buy into the group.
The new MLR rules will help "guarantee that consumers get the most out of their premium dollars," U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a press conference, adding that "overhead costs contribute little or nothing to the care of patients and health of Americans."
The rules affect insurers such as Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp, Humana Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc and WellPoint Inc, among others.
In releasing the final rules, HHS officials said they followed the advice of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) on many issues such as taxes, state waivers and consumer rebates.
The healthcare law requires large group health plans to allocate at least 85 cents per premium dollar to medical care, not administrative costs or profit. Plans for individuals or small groups must spend 80 cents per dollar.
If plans do not spend at least that much on care, policy holders get a rebate. HHS said Monday up to 9 million Americans could be eligible for up to $1.4 billion in rebates starting in 2012.
Although the limits are mandated in the new healthcare law, insurers such as Aetna Inc and WellPoint Inc did win some concessions from the U.S. government surrounding implementation of the rules.
Under the final rules unveiled by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), insurers will be able to deduct federal and state taxes from premium dollars to help meet the new spending thresholds but not taxes related to investments or capital gains.
It also allows some exemptions for smaller plans, new insurance offerings, and "mini-med" policies that offer limited coverage.
A variety of experts from Wall Street analysts to state insurance officials have openly worried the new spending limits could push some insurers out of certain markets, affecting not only company bottom lines but also consumer choice.
Consumer advocates also worried fewer options in some states could destabilize the market, especially since other new rules meant to boost demand for policies do not take effect until 2014 when Americans must buy coverage or face fines.
But HHS officials said on Monday that while some people with individual health policies are in plans that fail to meet the new spending rules, most insurers should be able adjust to meet the rules.
"The health insurance industry today is well-positioned to meet the new MLR standards," said Jay Angoff, director of HHS' Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Under the rules, states can seek certain exemptions for up to three years to help keep insurers from abandoning their market. The states will not be granted blanket waivers but can seek adjusted MLR spending limits. So far, Iowa, Georgia, Maine and South Carolina have sought such help.
Other industry exemptions include a one-year grace period for so-called mini-medical plans that offer limited coverage and generated headlines when some employers such as McDonald's Corp said they might have to stop offering them because of the rules. Plans for U.S. workers based overseas also have a one-year deferral while HHS gathers data.
Small plans with less than 75,000 enrollees in a state are also allowed to adjust their calculations because of their small size, while companies offering a new insurance policy will have one year before having to meet the rules.
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/gyf66q U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, online November 22, 2010.
Such spending limits, known as a medical loss ratio or MLR, were required under the healthcare overhaul passed in March and largely reflect earlier recommendations by a key group of state insurance regulators.
Uncertainty over the final rules has hung over the health insurance industry. Companies have said they were waiting for the rules to become concrete before giving specific financial outlooks for next year, while investors have been hesitant to buy into the group.
The new MLR rules will help "guarantee that consumers get the most out of their premium dollars," U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a press conference, adding that "overhead costs contribute little or nothing to the care of patients and health of Americans."
The rules affect insurers such as Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp, Humana Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc and WellPoint Inc, among others.
In releasing the final rules, HHS officials said they followed the advice of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) on many issues such as taxes, state waivers and consumer rebates.
The healthcare law requires large group health plans to allocate at least 85 cents per premium dollar to medical care, not administrative costs or profit. Plans for individuals or small groups must spend 80 cents per dollar.
If plans do not spend at least that much on care, policy holders get a rebate. HHS said Monday up to 9 million Americans could be eligible for up to $1.4 billion in rebates starting in 2012.
Although the limits are mandated in the new healthcare law, insurers such as Aetna Inc and WellPoint Inc did win some concessions from the U.S. government surrounding implementation of the rules.
Under the final rules unveiled by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), insurers will be able to deduct federal and state taxes from premium dollars to help meet the new spending thresholds but not taxes related to investments or capital gains.
It also allows some exemptions for smaller plans, new insurance offerings, and "mini-med" policies that offer limited coverage.
A variety of experts from Wall Street analysts to state insurance officials have openly worried the new spending limits could push some insurers out of certain markets, affecting not only company bottom lines but also consumer choice.
Consumer advocates also worried fewer options in some states could destabilize the market, especially since other new rules meant to boost demand for policies do not take effect until 2014 when Americans must buy coverage or face fines.
But HHS officials said on Monday that while some people with individual health policies are in plans that fail to meet the new spending rules, most insurers should be able adjust to meet the rules.
"The health insurance industry today is well-positioned to meet the new MLR standards," said Jay Angoff, director of HHS' Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Under the rules, states can seek certain exemptions for up to three years to help keep insurers from abandoning their market. The states will not be granted blanket waivers but can seek adjusted MLR spending limits. So far, Iowa, Georgia, Maine and South Carolina have sought such help.
Other industry exemptions include a one-year grace period for so-called mini-medical plans that offer limited coverage and generated headlines when some employers such as McDonald's Corp said they might have to stop offering them because of the rules. Plans for U.S. workers based overseas also have a one-year deferral while HHS gathers data.
Small plans with less than 75,000 enrollees in a state are also allowed to adjust their calculations because of their small size, while companies offering a new insurance policy will have one year before having to meet the rules.
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/gyf66q U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, online November 22, 2010.
World health officials take aim at tobacco additives
PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay (Reuters) - World health officials recommended on Saturday limiting additives that make cigarettes more palatable, but they postponed until 2012 a number of other issues after five days of deliberations.
The World Health Organization meeting in Uruguay's fashionable beach resort of Punta del Este was aimed at fleshing out the so-called Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, which 171 countries have signed.
The global public health treaty addresses tobacco industry marketing and cigarette smuggling.
Delegates approved a proposal to limit the use of tobacco additives, which critics say improve the flavor of cigarettes, encouraging consumers to smoke more.
But they put off until the next meeting decisions on tougher taxes for tobacco products, alternative crops for tobacco farmers, and the regulation of smokeless electronic cigarettes, which provide vaporized puffs of nicotine.
"We've been able to take this conference to another level," said Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku, who presided at the WHO meeting.
The International Tobacco Growers Association criticized the recommendation to limit additives, saying it would hurt farmers who cultivate certain tobacco varieties that lose their flavor more easily, without curbing overall production.
"This is an ambiguous decision ... it gives countries great leeway in deciding what measures to take on mixes (of tobacco varieties)," said Antonio Abrunhosa, head of the growers' group.
Health officials also recommended actions to beef up education and awareness campaigns on the dangers of smoking.
And they publicly backed Uruguay's tough anti-smoking rules, some of which have been challenged by global tobacco company Philip Morris International.
The company this year sought arbitration at the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, citing a trade deal between Uruguay and Switzerland, where the company is based.
Philip Morris has said it supports many of the Uruguayan measures, but disputes several regulations including an increase in the size of health warnings on packets and a rule that limits the number of brands any one company can sell.
Uruguay's president, former leftist guerrilla leader Jose Mujica, said this week the multinational firm was going after a small nation for "trying to defend its people's health."
More than 51 million people worldwide have died of tobacco-related illnesses since 1999, according to the WHO.
The World Health Organization meeting in Uruguay's fashionable beach resort of Punta del Este was aimed at fleshing out the so-called Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, which 171 countries have signed.
The global public health treaty addresses tobacco industry marketing and cigarette smuggling.
Delegates approved a proposal to limit the use of tobacco additives, which critics say improve the flavor of cigarettes, encouraging consumers to smoke more.
But they put off until the next meeting decisions on tougher taxes for tobacco products, alternative crops for tobacco farmers, and the regulation of smokeless electronic cigarettes, which provide vaporized puffs of nicotine.
"We've been able to take this conference to another level," said Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku, who presided at the WHO meeting.
The International Tobacco Growers Association criticized the recommendation to limit additives, saying it would hurt farmers who cultivate certain tobacco varieties that lose their flavor more easily, without curbing overall production.
"This is an ambiguous decision ... it gives countries great leeway in deciding what measures to take on mixes (of tobacco varieties)," said Antonio Abrunhosa, head of the growers' group.
Health officials also recommended actions to beef up education and awareness campaigns on the dangers of smoking.
And they publicly backed Uruguay's tough anti-smoking rules, some of which have been challenged by global tobacco company Philip Morris International.
The company this year sought arbitration at the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, citing a trade deal between Uruguay and Switzerland, where the company is based.
Philip Morris has said it supports many of the Uruguayan measures, but disputes several regulations including an increase in the size of health warnings on packets and a rule that limits the number of brands any one company can sell.
Uruguay's president, former leftist guerrilla leader Jose Mujica, said this week the multinational firm was going after a small nation for "trying to defend its people's health."
More than 51 million people worldwide have died of tobacco-related illnesses since 1999, according to the WHO.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
ONE FLAW IN WOMEN
GOD DOESN'T GIVE YOU THE PEOPLE YOU WANT, HE GIVES YOU THE PEOPLE YOU NEED... TO HELP YOU, TO HURT YOU, TO LEAVE YOU, TO LOVE YOU AND TO MAKE YOU INTO THE PERSON YOU WERE MEANT TO BE.
ONE FLAW IN WOMEN
WOMEN HAVE STRENGTHS THAT AMAZE MEN...
THEY BEAR HARDSHIPS AND THEY CARRY BURDENS,
BUT THEY HOLD HAPPINESS, LOVE AND JOY.
THEY SMILE WHEN THEY WANT TO SCREAM.
THEY SING WHEN THEY WANT TO CRY.
THEY DRY WHEN THEY ARE HAPPY,
AND LAUGH WHEN THEY ARE NERVOUS.
THEY FIGHT FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN.. THEY STAND UP TO JUSTICE.
THEY DON'T TAKE "NO" FOR AN ANSWER
WHEN THEY BELIEVE THERE IS A BETTER SOLUTION.
THEY GO WITHOUT SO THEIR FAMILY CAN HAVE.
THEY GO TO THE DOCTOR WITH A FRIGHTENED FRIEND.
THEY LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY.
THEY CRY WHEN THEIR CHILDREN EXCEL
AND CHEER WHEN THEIR FRIENDS GET AWARDS.
THEY ARE HAPPY WHEN THEY HEAR ABOUT
A BIRTH OR A WEDDING.
THEIR HEARTS BREAK WHEN A FRIEND DIES.
THEY GRIEVE AT THE LOSS OF A FAMILY MEMBER,
YET THEY ARE STRONG WHEN THEY
THINK THERE IS NO STRENGTH LEFT.
THEY KNOW THAT A HUG AND A KISS
CAN HEAL A BROKEN HEART.
WOMEN COME IN ALL SHAPES, SIZES AND COLORS.
THEY'LL DRIVE, FLY,WALK,RUN OR EMAIL YOU
TO SHOW HOW MUCH THEY CARE ABOUT YOU.
THE HEART OF A WOMEN IS WHAT
MAKES THE WORLD KEEP TURNING.
THEY BRING JOY, HOPE AND LOVE.
THEY HAVE COMPASSION AND IDEAS.
THEY GIVE MORAL SUPPORT TO THEIR
FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
WOMEN HAVE VITAL THINGS TO SAY
AND EVERYTHING TO GIVE..
HOWEVER, IF THERE IS ONE FLAW IN WOMEN,
IT IS THAT THEY FORGET THEIR WORTH.
PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL YOUR WOMEN FRIENDS AND RELATIVES TO REMIND THEM JUST HOW AMAZING THEY ARE.
ONE FLAW IN WOMEN
WOMEN HAVE STRENGTHS THAT AMAZE MEN...
THEY BEAR HARDSHIPS AND THEY CARRY BURDENS,
BUT THEY HOLD HAPPINESS, LOVE AND JOY.
THEY SMILE WHEN THEY WANT TO SCREAM.
THEY SING WHEN THEY WANT TO CRY.
THEY DRY WHEN THEY ARE HAPPY,
AND LAUGH WHEN THEY ARE NERVOUS.
THEY FIGHT FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN.. THEY STAND UP TO JUSTICE.
THEY DON'T TAKE "NO" FOR AN ANSWER
WHEN THEY BELIEVE THERE IS A BETTER SOLUTION.
THEY GO WITHOUT SO THEIR FAMILY CAN HAVE.
THEY GO TO THE DOCTOR WITH A FRIGHTENED FRIEND.
THEY LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY.
THEY CRY WHEN THEIR CHILDREN EXCEL
AND CHEER WHEN THEIR FRIENDS GET AWARDS.
THEY ARE HAPPY WHEN THEY HEAR ABOUT
A BIRTH OR A WEDDING.
THEIR HEARTS BREAK WHEN A FRIEND DIES.
THEY GRIEVE AT THE LOSS OF A FAMILY MEMBER,
YET THEY ARE STRONG WHEN THEY
THINK THERE IS NO STRENGTH LEFT.
THEY KNOW THAT A HUG AND A KISS
CAN HEAL A BROKEN HEART.
WOMEN COME IN ALL SHAPES, SIZES AND COLORS.
THEY'LL DRIVE, FLY,WALK,RUN OR EMAIL YOU
TO SHOW HOW MUCH THEY CARE ABOUT YOU.
THE HEART OF A WOMEN IS WHAT
MAKES THE WORLD KEEP TURNING.
THEY BRING JOY, HOPE AND LOVE.
THEY HAVE COMPASSION AND IDEAS.
THEY GIVE MORAL SUPPORT TO THEIR
FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
WOMEN HAVE VITAL THINGS TO SAY
AND EVERYTHING TO GIVE..
HOWEVER, IF THERE IS ONE FLAW IN WOMEN,
IT IS THAT THEY FORGET THEIR WORTH.
PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL YOUR WOMEN FRIENDS AND RELATIVES TO REMIND THEM JUST HOW AMAZING THEY ARE.
More Clues To Fibromyalgia Pain
Fibromyalgia patients have more "connectivity" between brain networks and regions of the brain involved in pain processing, which may help explain why sufferers feel pain even when there is no obvious cause, a new study suggests.
Researchers had 18 women with fibromyalgia undergo six-minute fMRI brain scans, and compared their results to women without the condition.
Participants were asked to rate the intensity of the pain they were feeling at the time of the test. Some people reported feeling little pain, while others reported feeling more intense pain.
Brain scans showed the connectivity, or neural activity, between certain brain networks and the insular cortex, a region of the brain involved in pain processing, was heightened in women with fibromyalgia compared to those without the condition.
The connectivity to the insular cortex was even stronger in participants who reported feeling more intense pain compared to milder pain, said study author Vitaly Napadow, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"We took advantage of the fact that there is a large discrepancy in the amount of pain patients happen to be in at the time they come in. Unfortunately some patients come in, and they are in a lot of pain. Other patients come in and they are not in pain," Napadow said.
The study, by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Michigan, is published in the August issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome that's characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, insomnia, and the presence of multiple tender points. The syndrome can also cause psychological issues, including anxiety, depression and memory and concentration problems, sometimes called the "fibromyalgia fog."
Prior research has shown that people with fibromyalgia feel a given amount of pain more intensely than others, Napadow explained. In other words, studies have shown a typical person might rate a painful stimuli a "one" on a scale or one to 10, while a person with fibromyalgia might rate the pain a 5 or higher.
The new study is different in that fibromyalgia patients' pain responses were measured while they were at rest and not being exposed to anything painful, Napadow said.
The brain networks involved were the default mode network (DMN) and the right executive attention network (EAN). The DMN is involved in "self-referential thinking," when you think about yourself or what's happening to you, Napadow explained.
The EAN is involved in working memory and attention. When that brain network is occupied, or distracted, by pain, it may explain some of the cognitive issues that fibromyalgia patients experience, Napadow said.
Dr. Philip Mease, director of rheumatology research at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle and a member of the National Fibromyalgia Association medical advisory board, said the study provides insight into what may be going on in the brains of people with fibromyalgia.
"This work shows there is increased connectivity between different brain centers that connect the purely sensory pain processing centers of the brain with some of the emotional and evaluative parts of the brain, or areas of the brain that take a sensory stimulus and say, "How do I interpret this? How do I feel about this'?" Mease said.
For years, fibromyalgia has been a highly misunderstood syndrome, with some doctors doubting it even existed, and others attributing the pain to depression or other psychological issues.
That began to change early this decade, when brain scans showed pain-processing abnormalities in fibromyalgia patients, Mease said.
"That first neuroimaging study really demonstrated fibromyalgia patients were different than normal individuals, and at a neurobiological level, were truly experiencing more pain at lower intensities," Mease said.
The new research moves understanding of the condition a step further, by exploring what's happening in the brain during a resting state.
"Regardless of poking or prodding them, this study is trying to get at an understanding of what is crackling in the brain, intrinsically, such that they have this higher sensitivity," Mease said.
About 10 million Americans are believed to have fibromyalgia, almost 90 percent of whom are women, according to the National Fibromyalgia Association. Sufferers report a history of widespread pain in all four quadrants of the body for at least three months, and pain in at least 11 of 18 "tender points."
Researchers had 18 women with fibromyalgia undergo six-minute fMRI brain scans, and compared their results to women without the condition.
Participants were asked to rate the intensity of the pain they were feeling at the time of the test. Some people reported feeling little pain, while others reported feeling more intense pain.
Brain scans showed the connectivity, or neural activity, between certain brain networks and the insular cortex, a region of the brain involved in pain processing, was heightened in women with fibromyalgia compared to those without the condition.
The connectivity to the insular cortex was even stronger in participants who reported feeling more intense pain compared to milder pain, said study author Vitaly Napadow, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"We took advantage of the fact that there is a large discrepancy in the amount of pain patients happen to be in at the time they come in. Unfortunately some patients come in, and they are in a lot of pain. Other patients come in and they are not in pain," Napadow said.
The study, by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Michigan, is published in the August issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome that's characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, insomnia, and the presence of multiple tender points. The syndrome can also cause psychological issues, including anxiety, depression and memory and concentration problems, sometimes called the "fibromyalgia fog."
Prior research has shown that people with fibromyalgia feel a given amount of pain more intensely than others, Napadow explained. In other words, studies have shown a typical person might rate a painful stimuli a "one" on a scale or one to 10, while a person with fibromyalgia might rate the pain a 5 or higher.
The new study is different in that fibromyalgia patients' pain responses were measured while they were at rest and not being exposed to anything painful, Napadow said.
The brain networks involved were the default mode network (DMN) and the right executive attention network (EAN). The DMN is involved in "self-referential thinking," when you think about yourself or what's happening to you, Napadow explained.
The EAN is involved in working memory and attention. When that brain network is occupied, or distracted, by pain, it may explain some of the cognitive issues that fibromyalgia patients experience, Napadow said.
Dr. Philip Mease, director of rheumatology research at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle and a member of the National Fibromyalgia Association medical advisory board, said the study provides insight into what may be going on in the brains of people with fibromyalgia.
"This work shows there is increased connectivity between different brain centers that connect the purely sensory pain processing centers of the brain with some of the emotional and evaluative parts of the brain, or areas of the brain that take a sensory stimulus and say, "How do I interpret this? How do I feel about this'?" Mease said.
For years, fibromyalgia has been a highly misunderstood syndrome, with some doctors doubting it even existed, and others attributing the pain to depression or other psychological issues.
That began to change early this decade, when brain scans showed pain-processing abnormalities in fibromyalgia patients, Mease said.
"That first neuroimaging study really demonstrated fibromyalgia patients were different than normal individuals, and at a neurobiological level, were truly experiencing more pain at lower intensities," Mease said.
The new research moves understanding of the condition a step further, by exploring what's happening in the brain during a resting state.
"Regardless of poking or prodding them, this study is trying to get at an understanding of what is crackling in the brain, intrinsically, such that they have this higher sensitivity," Mease said.
About 10 million Americans are believed to have fibromyalgia, almost 90 percent of whom are women, according to the National Fibromyalgia Association. Sufferers report a history of widespread pain in all four quadrants of the body for at least three months, and pain in at least 11 of 18 "tender points."
Alternative Treatments for Fibromyalgia
Odds are if you have fibromyalgia, you have heard about alternative treatments that may help you feel better. In fact, 90 percent of fibromyalgia patients have reported trying such alternative therapies as massage, acupuncture, dietary supplements or chiropractic treatment to ease their symptoms.
While research has yet to prove that all alternative therapies work in treating fibromyalgia, there is a lot of evidence that supports acupuncture as a successful treatment. Using super-thin needles, acupuncturists stimulate various pressure points to provide pain relief. Some studies show that electroacupuncture, in which an electric current is pulsed through a needle, is more effective than the traditional method.
Many people with fibromyalgia find different alternative methods effective. And like mainstream fibromyalgia treatments, what works for one person might have no effect on another. Bottom line: You have to shop around to see what is best for you.
Here are some other options:
Massage: Massage therapists work on the muscles and soft tissue of the body to alleviate pain, muscle spasms and stress. However, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reviewed research about the effectiveness of treating fibromyalgia with massage and found that the benefits are only short-term.
Cognitive behavioral therapy: Often called CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to be among the most effective non-medication treatments for fibromyalgia. CBT helps change the way you think about pain with the goal of changing the way your body responds to pain, thus making the pain less severe. It may also help improve sleep.
Though studies on the following methods have been deemed insufficient by some medical experts, they are still widely used by people with fibromyalgia, with varying degrees of success.
Myofascial release therapy works to stretch, soften, lengthen and realign connective tissue to ease pain.
Chiropractic treatment manipulates the spine into proper alignment, helping to boost immune system function and reduce pain.
Dietary supplements magnesium and SAM-e are often used to treat fibromyalgia. SAM-e is a naturally occurring compound in our bodies that helps in the production of dopamine and serotonin, which regulate mood and control the pain response. Preliminary research has shown evidence that SAM-e supplements may work to keep symptoms in check, but further study is needed. Magnesium is helpful in hundreds of ways, like converting food into energy, strengthening the immune system, and maintaining normal nerve and muscle function. Some researchers believe that a deficiency of this mineral contributes to fibromyalgia symptoms, though research into its efficacy has been inconclusive.
Finding the alternative treatment that works for you will require some experimentation. Ask your doctor for recommendations and be sure to tell him or her which treatments you already are using. This is especially important with dietary and herbal supplements since they can interact with other medications and possibly cause side effects.
Reviewed by Steven A. King, M.D.
While research has yet to prove that all alternative therapies work in treating fibromyalgia, there is a lot of evidence that supports acupuncture as a successful treatment. Using super-thin needles, acupuncturists stimulate various pressure points to provide pain relief. Some studies show that electroacupuncture, in which an electric current is pulsed through a needle, is more effective than the traditional method.
Many people with fibromyalgia find different alternative methods effective. And like mainstream fibromyalgia treatments, what works for one person might have no effect on another. Bottom line: You have to shop around to see what is best for you.
Here are some other options:
Massage: Massage therapists work on the muscles and soft tissue of the body to alleviate pain, muscle spasms and stress. However, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reviewed research about the effectiveness of treating fibromyalgia with massage and found that the benefits are only short-term.
Cognitive behavioral therapy: Often called CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to be among the most effective non-medication treatments for fibromyalgia. CBT helps change the way you think about pain with the goal of changing the way your body responds to pain, thus making the pain less severe. It may also help improve sleep.
Though studies on the following methods have been deemed insufficient by some medical experts, they are still widely used by people with fibromyalgia, with varying degrees of success.
Myofascial release therapy works to stretch, soften, lengthen and realign connective tissue to ease pain.
Chiropractic treatment manipulates the spine into proper alignment, helping to boost immune system function and reduce pain.
Dietary supplements magnesium and SAM-e are often used to treat fibromyalgia. SAM-e is a naturally occurring compound in our bodies that helps in the production of dopamine and serotonin, which regulate mood and control the pain response. Preliminary research has shown evidence that SAM-e supplements may work to keep symptoms in check, but further study is needed. Magnesium is helpful in hundreds of ways, like converting food into energy, strengthening the immune system, and maintaining normal nerve and muscle function. Some researchers believe that a deficiency of this mineral contributes to fibromyalgia symptoms, though research into its efficacy has been inconclusive.
Finding the alternative treatment that works for you will require some experimentation. Ask your doctor for recommendations and be sure to tell him or her which treatments you already are using. This is especially important with dietary and herbal supplements since they can interact with other medications and possibly cause side effects.
Reviewed by Steven A. King, M.D.
B12 for dementia prevention
"B" is for the billions of dollars being spent to develop dangerous and ineffective dementia drugs... but B has another, better meaning in the fight against Alzheimer's.
It's the ordinary B vitamins--particularly B12, the wonder nutrient that can help save both hearts and minds.
Researchers from Sweden's Karolinska Institute tracked 271 Finns between the ages of 65 and 79 for seven years. None of the patients had dementia at the start of the study.
Ultimately, however, 17 of them were diagnosed with the condition--and the researchers say B12 levels appeared to make a big difference in determining who was spared and who was impaired.
In fact, those with the highest levels of the critical nutrient had the lowest risk of an Alzheimer's diagnosis-- with each unit increase of B12 markers in the blood leading to a 2 percent decrease Alzheimer's risk.
The study also confirms the link between inflammation and Alzheimer's: Researchers say each unit increase in the inflammation marker homocysteine boosted the disease risk by 16 percent, according to the study published in Neurology.
High levels of homocysteine have also been linked to heart problems. And since B vitamins are known to send that inflammation packing, call it one more reason to put a B- rich steak on the grill tonight.
Of course, this new study was a pretty small one--and, let's face it, no one should ever make a major health decision based on a handful of people in Finland.
But when it comes to this key nutrient, you don't have to-- because this isn't the first study to find a link between B vitamins and dementia risk... and I'd bet big money that it won't be the last.
Heck, if I was a drug company, I'd even bet a billion dollars on it.
As I told you a few weeks ago, one recent study found that a blend of B6, B12 and folic acid dramatically reduced the brain shrinkage associated with dementia.
The blend used in that study may soon be sold as "drug," which may be the only way the mainstream will accept B supplements for dementia prevention--because they're certainly not willing to endorse the idea now.
"It might be tempting at this stage to stock up the cupboard with B vitamin in the light of recent findings-- it remains too early to do that at this stage," Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, told the BBC.
But since B vitamins play a key role in mood, memory and cardiovascular health, there's simply no reason not to make sure you're getting what you need.
And chances are, you might not have enough.
Your doctor can measure your B levels and help determine how much you need to stay healthy and lower your own disease risk.
The best natural sources are fresh meats, fish and eggs-- and if you're not eating enough of those, look for a quality a supplement.
It doesn't have to be sold as a "drug" to work.
It's the ordinary B vitamins--particularly B12, the wonder nutrient that can help save both hearts and minds.
Researchers from Sweden's Karolinska Institute tracked 271 Finns between the ages of 65 and 79 for seven years. None of the patients had dementia at the start of the study.
Ultimately, however, 17 of them were diagnosed with the condition--and the researchers say B12 levels appeared to make a big difference in determining who was spared and who was impaired.
In fact, those with the highest levels of the critical nutrient had the lowest risk of an Alzheimer's diagnosis-- with each unit increase of B12 markers in the blood leading to a 2 percent decrease Alzheimer's risk.
The study also confirms the link between inflammation and Alzheimer's: Researchers say each unit increase in the inflammation marker homocysteine boosted the disease risk by 16 percent, according to the study published in Neurology.
High levels of homocysteine have also been linked to heart problems. And since B vitamins are known to send that inflammation packing, call it one more reason to put a B- rich steak on the grill tonight.
Of course, this new study was a pretty small one--and, let's face it, no one should ever make a major health decision based on a handful of people in Finland.
But when it comes to this key nutrient, you don't have to-- because this isn't the first study to find a link between B vitamins and dementia risk... and I'd bet big money that it won't be the last.
Heck, if I was a drug company, I'd even bet a billion dollars on it.
As I told you a few weeks ago, one recent study found that a blend of B6, B12 and folic acid dramatically reduced the brain shrinkage associated with dementia.
The blend used in that study may soon be sold as "drug," which may be the only way the mainstream will accept B supplements for dementia prevention--because they're certainly not willing to endorse the idea now.
"It might be tempting at this stage to stock up the cupboard with B vitamin in the light of recent findings-- it remains too early to do that at this stage," Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, told the BBC.
But since B vitamins play a key role in mood, memory and cardiovascular health, there's simply no reason not to make sure you're getting what you need.
And chances are, you might not have enough.
Your doctor can measure your B levels and help determine how much you need to stay healthy and lower your own disease risk.
The best natural sources are fresh meats, fish and eggs-- and if you're not eating enough of those, look for a quality a supplement.
It doesn't have to be sold as a "drug" to work.
A Spicy Way to Lose Weight
Want to add a little spice to your food while you reduce the rate your blood sugar rises after you eat? Try adding a little cinnamon to your meals!
Cinnamon is full of antioxidants and is an excellent source of manganese. It's also a good source of fiber. Plus, research has shown that ground cinnamon can help lower insulin resistance and blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes.
So why not add a kick of cinnamon to your favorite foods? Try sprinkling cinnamon on your morning yogurt or oatmeal, or add a dash to your dinner veggies or poultry. Not only will your food taste better, but you'll also be benefiting your waistline and your health.
Cinnamon is full of antioxidants and is an excellent source of manganese. It's also a good source of fiber. Plus, research has shown that ground cinnamon can help lower insulin resistance and blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes.
So why not add a kick of cinnamon to your favorite foods? Try sprinkling cinnamon on your morning yogurt or oatmeal, or add a dash to your dinner veggies or poultry. Not only will your food taste better, but you'll also be benefiting your waistline and your health.
Which Salad Green Is Healthiest?
"Rich in iron, calcium and B vitamins, spinach is a nutritional powerhouse. And because spinach is high in fiber, it's filling enough to ward off post-meal snacking, too..."
—Jennifer Neily, registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Dallas Dietetic Association
—Jennifer Neily, registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Dallas Dietetic Association
Friday, November 26, 2010
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
The single greatest thing you can do to change your life today would be to start being grateful for what you have right now. And the more grateful you are, the more you get.
Veggie Consumption Tied to Longevity
Eating lots of orange and dark green vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and green beans may be tied to less disease and longer life, suggests a new study.
This time it is not the beta-carotene in vegetables that has the spotlight, but rather its cousin: alpha-carotene. Both are members of the carotenoid antioxidant family. Scientists believe carotenoid antioxidants promote health by counteracting oxygen-related damage to DNA.
Consumption of fruits and vegetables has long been associated with lower risks of health problems such as cancer and heart disease, said Dr. Chaoyang Li of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, in e-mail to Reuters Health.
However, it is still not clear which elements contribute to the health effects or how they do so, he added, pointing to recent studies that have found no apparent benefit for beta-carotene supplements.
To investigate the merits of often ignored alpha-carotene, Li and his colleagues analyzed information on more than 15,000 people who were participating in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Follow-up Study. All of them provided blood samples at the start of the study, along with other medical and lifestyle information.
By the end of the 14-year study, nearly 4,000 participants had died. The researchers found that the more alpha-carotene participants had in their blood at the start of the study, the lower their risks of disease and death.
For example, compared to individuals with only trace amounts of alpha-carotene in their blood, those with the highest levels had up to a 39 percent lower risk of dying, the researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The findings held after accounting for risk factors such as age and smoking, and were also similar when looking specifically at rates of death due to heart disease and cancer.
Still, the researchers caution that the link does not prove that alpha-carotene deserves the credit.
"Alpha-carotene may be at least partially responsible for the risk reduction," Li said. "However, we are unable to rule out the possible links of other antioxidants or other elements in vegetables and fruits to lower mortality risk."
"Alpha-carotene has a lot of overlapping chemical properties with beta-carotene, as well as the same perceived mechanisms of effect," added Howard Sesso of the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, who reviewed the findings for Reuters Health. "In fact, it's hard to disentangle the two from each other. They tend to travel together."
Carrots, carotenoid's namesake, are a key source of both.
Li did highlight some potential evidence for a difference between the two. Laboratory studies have hinted that alpha-carotene is about 10 times more effective at inhibiting some forms of brain, liver, and skin cancer than beta-carotene.
"We don't know how this is going to translate into practice yet, but it is encouraging," said Sesso. "If nothing else, these results reinforce the point that there is likely little downside to increasing your fruit and veggie intake."
This time it is not the beta-carotene in vegetables that has the spotlight, but rather its cousin: alpha-carotene. Both are members of the carotenoid antioxidant family. Scientists believe carotenoid antioxidants promote health by counteracting oxygen-related damage to DNA.
Consumption of fruits and vegetables has long been associated with lower risks of health problems such as cancer and heart disease, said Dr. Chaoyang Li of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, in e-mail to Reuters Health.
However, it is still not clear which elements contribute to the health effects or how they do so, he added, pointing to recent studies that have found no apparent benefit for beta-carotene supplements.
To investigate the merits of often ignored alpha-carotene, Li and his colleagues analyzed information on more than 15,000 people who were participating in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Follow-up Study. All of them provided blood samples at the start of the study, along with other medical and lifestyle information.
By the end of the 14-year study, nearly 4,000 participants had died. The researchers found that the more alpha-carotene participants had in their blood at the start of the study, the lower their risks of disease and death.
For example, compared to individuals with only trace amounts of alpha-carotene in their blood, those with the highest levels had up to a 39 percent lower risk of dying, the researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The findings held after accounting for risk factors such as age and smoking, and were also similar when looking specifically at rates of death due to heart disease and cancer.
Still, the researchers caution that the link does not prove that alpha-carotene deserves the credit.
"Alpha-carotene may be at least partially responsible for the risk reduction," Li said. "However, we are unable to rule out the possible links of other antioxidants or other elements in vegetables and fruits to lower mortality risk."
"Alpha-carotene has a lot of overlapping chemical properties with beta-carotene, as well as the same perceived mechanisms of effect," added Howard Sesso of the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, who reviewed the findings for Reuters Health. "In fact, it's hard to disentangle the two from each other. They tend to travel together."
Carrots, carotenoid's namesake, are a key source of both.
Li did highlight some potential evidence for a difference between the two. Laboratory studies have hinted that alpha-carotene is about 10 times more effective at inhibiting some forms of brain, liver, and skin cancer than beta-carotene.
"We don't know how this is going to translate into practice yet, but it is encouraging," said Sesso. "If nothing else, these results reinforce the point that there is likely little downside to increasing your fruit and veggie intake."
Dr. Wascher: Proven Ways to Live Cancer-Free
Research shows that half of all cancer cases are preventable through lifestyle and diet modifications, but Dr. Robert Wascher, a surgical oncologist, says he knows that people are confused by information about prevention strategies. So he carefully reviewed the latest evidence-based research findings on cancer prevention tactics.
The result is “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” what he calls an “honest, authentic, and objective examination of what we really know.”
The airwaves and Internet inundate us with cancer information — from celebrity stories and so-called facts grounded in little research to anecdotal information and legitimate medical studies. Through his exhaustive research, Wascher created a guide that details real steps people can take to help lower their risk. They include:
Quitting Smoking More than four decades after the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report about the dangers of smoking, it is still the No. 1 preventable cause of cancer in the United States and worldwide, and lung cancer is still the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths here, he says. Cancers of the head, neck, pancreas, colon, and other cancers also are linked to smoking.
Eating a Mediterranean-Type Diet A diet rich in meat and other sources of saturated animal fat is linked to cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, such as stomach and esophageal cancers. But studies have shown populations that eat a Mediterranean diet, one that is low in red meat and rich in fish, nuts, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, have fewer cancer risks and deaths and less cardiovascular disease, Wascher notes.
Watching Calorie and Alcohol Intake Drinking moderate amounts of alcohol daily is associated with cancers of the breast, prostate, head, neck, colon, and other cancers. Obesity and a lack of exercise are cancer risk factors. Also, obesity puts one at risk for diabetes, which, in turn, is a cancer risk factor.
Wascher found many reasons to be optimistic about developing cancer treatments. Advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques are resulting in less pain and more rapid recovery for patients, he says. Also, advances in molecular biology are allowing for customized therapy of individual tumors.
“Increasingly, this sort of individualized approach to cancer treatment is going to define the future of cancer care in our country in contrast to the one-size-fits-all approach that we have historically used to treat cancer patients,” he says.
The result is “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race,” what he calls an “honest, authentic, and objective examination of what we really know.”
The airwaves and Internet inundate us with cancer information — from celebrity stories and so-called facts grounded in little research to anecdotal information and legitimate medical studies. Through his exhaustive research, Wascher created a guide that details real steps people can take to help lower their risk. They include:
Quitting Smoking More than four decades after the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report about the dangers of smoking, it is still the No. 1 preventable cause of cancer in the United States and worldwide, and lung cancer is still the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths here, he says. Cancers of the head, neck, pancreas, colon, and other cancers also are linked to smoking.
Eating a Mediterranean-Type Diet A diet rich in meat and other sources of saturated animal fat is linked to cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, such as stomach and esophageal cancers. But studies have shown populations that eat a Mediterranean diet, one that is low in red meat and rich in fish, nuts, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, have fewer cancer risks and deaths and less cardiovascular disease, Wascher notes.
Watching Calorie and Alcohol Intake Drinking moderate amounts of alcohol daily is associated with cancers of the breast, prostate, head, neck, colon, and other cancers. Obesity and a lack of exercise are cancer risk factors. Also, obesity puts one at risk for diabetes, which, in turn, is a cancer risk factor.
Wascher found many reasons to be optimistic about developing cancer treatments. Advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques are resulting in less pain and more rapid recovery for patients, he says. Also, advances in molecular biology are allowing for customized therapy of individual tumors.
“Increasingly, this sort of individualized approach to cancer treatment is going to define the future of cancer care in our country in contrast to the one-size-fits-all approach that we have historically used to treat cancer patients,” he says.
Cancer survivors follow doc's orders
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have participated in clinical trials and survived colon cancer are generally better at keeping up with regular cancer screening and other health recommendations, new study findings suggest.
Specifically, survivors more often than cancer-free people had a usual source of healthcare, had received a recent flu shot and got regular cancer screening such as Pap smears, mammograms, and a blood test to check for prostate cancer.
These findings are not surprising, study author Dr. Hiroko Kunitake at Massachusetts General Hospital told Reuters Health. But it may not be a diagnosis of cancer per se that motivates them to stay healthy, she added.
All of the cancer survivors had been enrolled in a clinical trial -- and to get there, they needed to have health insurance and a doctor who encouraged them to try it, Kunitake said.
People who participate in clinical trials also are typically quite motivated, organized and able to navigate a complicated healthcare system, the researcher added. So they might be extra likely to follow doctors' orders about staying healthy, too.
However, even though cancer survivors were better at keeping up with regular screening than people who hadn't had the disease, many still failed to schedule important screenings and flu shots.
"Even though patients do better than the general public, they still are not 100 percent," said Kunitake, whose findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
And if this particularly motivated group of cancer survivors isn't keeping up with regular screenings, other survivors "on the opposite spectrum" are likely doing even worse, Kunitake said.
To investigate how well cancer survivors keep up with recommendations about regular screenings, Kunitake and her colleagues reviewed surveys from 708 people who had participated in clinical trials and lived for at least five years after getting sick, along with more than 2,000 people who had never had cancer.
They found that two-thirds of female survivors had received a Pap smear and more than 80 percent a mammogram within the last year. Among those who had never had cancer, only 55 percent had gotten a Pap smear, and 71 percent a mammogram.
Nearly 85 percent of male survivors had received a blood test to check for prostate cancer within the previous year, versus less than 75 percent of those without cancer.
Last month, another study appearing in the same journal found that being part of a clinical trial doesn't guarantee better cancer treatment.
Kunitake explained the new study provides no insight into the benefits of clinical trials themselves, because patients were likely health-conscious and motivated to begin with, and that's why they entered a clinical trial.
However, Dr. Craig Earle at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario, who reviewed the paper for Reuters Health, said there's reason to suspect that people who enter clinical trials might become healthier as a result.
"While there is controversy about whether participation in a clinical trial leads to higher quality care for the phase of care being tested, it does usually result in more medical attention," he said in an e-mail. As a result, "participating in a trial and surviving cancer may turn out to be a good thing for them in the long run."
And simply receiving a diagnosis of cancer may be enough to encourage some people to keep better tabs on their health, Earle added.
"Individually, a health scare like a cancer diagnosis may make patients realize their vulnerabilities and resolve to be more proactive in other areas of their health."
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/xuq26q Journal of Clinical Oncology, November 15, 2010.
Specifically, survivors more often than cancer-free people had a usual source of healthcare, had received a recent flu shot and got regular cancer screening such as Pap smears, mammograms, and a blood test to check for prostate cancer.
These findings are not surprising, study author Dr. Hiroko Kunitake at Massachusetts General Hospital told Reuters Health. But it may not be a diagnosis of cancer per se that motivates them to stay healthy, she added.
All of the cancer survivors had been enrolled in a clinical trial -- and to get there, they needed to have health insurance and a doctor who encouraged them to try it, Kunitake said.
People who participate in clinical trials also are typically quite motivated, organized and able to navigate a complicated healthcare system, the researcher added. So they might be extra likely to follow doctors' orders about staying healthy, too.
However, even though cancer survivors were better at keeping up with regular screening than people who hadn't had the disease, many still failed to schedule important screenings and flu shots.
"Even though patients do better than the general public, they still are not 100 percent," said Kunitake, whose findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
And if this particularly motivated group of cancer survivors isn't keeping up with regular screenings, other survivors "on the opposite spectrum" are likely doing even worse, Kunitake said.
To investigate how well cancer survivors keep up with recommendations about regular screenings, Kunitake and her colleagues reviewed surveys from 708 people who had participated in clinical trials and lived for at least five years after getting sick, along with more than 2,000 people who had never had cancer.
They found that two-thirds of female survivors had received a Pap smear and more than 80 percent a mammogram within the last year. Among those who had never had cancer, only 55 percent had gotten a Pap smear, and 71 percent a mammogram.
Nearly 85 percent of male survivors had received a blood test to check for prostate cancer within the previous year, versus less than 75 percent of those without cancer.
Last month, another study appearing in the same journal found that being part of a clinical trial doesn't guarantee better cancer treatment.
Kunitake explained the new study provides no insight into the benefits of clinical trials themselves, because patients were likely health-conscious and motivated to begin with, and that's why they entered a clinical trial.
However, Dr. Craig Earle at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario, who reviewed the paper for Reuters Health, said there's reason to suspect that people who enter clinical trials might become healthier as a result.
"While there is controversy about whether participation in a clinical trial leads to higher quality care for the phase of care being tested, it does usually result in more medical attention," he said in an e-mail. As a result, "participating in a trial and surviving cancer may turn out to be a good thing for them in the long run."
And simply receiving a diagnosis of cancer may be enough to encourage some people to keep better tabs on their health, Earle added.
"Individually, a health scare like a cancer diagnosis may make patients realize their vulnerabilities and resolve to be more proactive in other areas of their health."
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/xuq26q Journal of Clinical Oncology, November 15, 2010.
3 Ways Beets Can't Be Beat
Beets often get a bad rap for containing too much sugar. But this fall food has enough fiber to keep you full, which can help you lose weight. Beets also have many other nutritional benefits that make them a worthy addition to your regular diet. Here are three reasons you can't beat the beet:
1. They're high in antioxidants. Beets are a good source of vitamin C, manganese (which helps keep your bones strong and maintain normal blood sugar levels) and potassium (which helps lower high blood pressure risk).
2. Beets may help reduce inflammation, which can reduce your risk of heart disease.
3. Though this is still being studied, beets may help reduce risk of cancer.
You can serve beets raw, grated on top of a salad or cooked as a tasty fall side dish. One cup of beets contains only about 75 calories, so go ahead—indulge in the beet!
1. They're high in antioxidants. Beets are a good source of vitamin C, manganese (which helps keep your bones strong and maintain normal blood sugar levels) and potassium (which helps lower high blood pressure risk).
2. Beets may help reduce inflammation, which can reduce your risk of heart disease.
3. Though this is still being studied, beets may help reduce risk of cancer.
You can serve beets raw, grated on top of a salad or cooked as a tasty fall side dish. One cup of beets contains only about 75 calories, so go ahead—indulge in the beet!
Diabetes and Dementia
Question: I am only 50 years old but am having a terrible problem with my memory. Sometimes I can’t remember conversations I had the day before. I have diabetes and am very overweight. Am I in danger of dementia?
Dr. Hibberd’s Answer:
From my experience, it sounds as though your diabetes is not well controlled. Erratic fluctuations in blood sugar and chronically elevated blood sugar levels are definitely connected to memory decline and greater dementia risk.
Changing your eating habits and getting regular exercise are absolute requirements, as medication is an aid rather than a substitute. I know it’s difficult to make such changes but with the right education and help, it can be done.
I suggest you start by walking as far as is comfortable every day, and gradually increase the distance. It doesn’t matter if you can only go down your driveway at first.
At the same time, see your doctor to check if your medications need to be adjusted. And, ask for a referral to a certified diabetes educator to learn how to choose and prepare foods you like in a way that will control your blood sugar.
Dr. Hibberd’s Answer:
From my experience, it sounds as though your diabetes is not well controlled. Erratic fluctuations in blood sugar and chronically elevated blood sugar levels are definitely connected to memory decline and greater dementia risk.
Changing your eating habits and getting regular exercise are absolute requirements, as medication is an aid rather than a substitute. I know it’s difficult to make such changes but with the right education and help, it can be done.
I suggest you start by walking as far as is comfortable every day, and gradually increase the distance. It doesn’t matter if you can only go down your driveway at first.
At the same time, see your doctor to check if your medications need to be adjusted. And, ask for a referral to a certified diabetes educator to learn how to choose and prepare foods you like in a way that will control your blood sugar.
Treating Sciatic Nerve Pain
Question: What can I do for sciatic nerve pain?
Dr. Hibberd’s Answer:
The sciatic nerve is composed of a combination of lower back nerve roots (the fourth lumbar nerve root to the third sacral nerve root) whose fibers join outside of the spinal canal to form the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve is the main nerve supplying each thigh, leg, and foot with motor and sensory function.
Common injuries to the lower back and buttock area may produce sciatic nerve irritation either directly to the nerve or via one of its rootlets that the nerve originates from. Disc disease may compress the neural foramen where the nerve root emerges from the spinal canal, and if it involves one of the rootlets that make up the nerve itself, there may be sciatica-like symptoms.
Likewise, other conditions of the lower lumbar, sacral spine, and pelvis such as direct trauma, tumors, disc prolapse, fractures, or spondylolisthesis (forward slipping of one vertebrae on the one below it) may affect these neural rootlets or the nerve itself.
The first and best thing you need to do is be examined by a competent medical professional. Usually a complete examination will reveal the source of your sciatic nerve complaint, and then a satisfactory treatment program can be established. Often an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is useful for confirmation and identification of spinal and disc disease. Disc material is not visible on plain X-ray film and requires more involved study through MRI or CAT (computerized axial tomography) scan. Expect a trial of conservative anti-inflammatories first unless neurologic deficits are present, and be sure to follow your doctor’s advice and allow re-evaluation and further investigation.
Dr. Hibberd’s Answer:
The sciatic nerve is composed of a combination of lower back nerve roots (the fourth lumbar nerve root to the third sacral nerve root) whose fibers join outside of the spinal canal to form the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve is the main nerve supplying each thigh, leg, and foot with motor and sensory function.
Common injuries to the lower back and buttock area may produce sciatic nerve irritation either directly to the nerve or via one of its rootlets that the nerve originates from. Disc disease may compress the neural foramen where the nerve root emerges from the spinal canal, and if it involves one of the rootlets that make up the nerve itself, there may be sciatica-like symptoms.
Likewise, other conditions of the lower lumbar, sacral spine, and pelvis such as direct trauma, tumors, disc prolapse, fractures, or spondylolisthesis (forward slipping of one vertebrae on the one below it) may affect these neural rootlets or the nerve itself.
The first and best thing you need to do is be examined by a competent medical professional. Usually a complete examination will reveal the source of your sciatic nerve complaint, and then a satisfactory treatment program can be established. Often an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is useful for confirmation and identification of spinal and disc disease. Disc material is not visible on plain X-ray film and requires more involved study through MRI or CAT (computerized axial tomography) scan. Expect a trial of conservative anti-inflammatories first unless neurologic deficits are present, and be sure to follow your doctor’s advice and allow re-evaluation and further investigation.
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